ELR Citation: ELR 20255
No(s). 04-15512 (9th Cir. Dec 19, 2005)

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service wrongfully denied environmental groups' request for a waiver of fees in connection with their procurement of geospatial information systems (GIS) data records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Although 7 U.S.C. §1387 allows the Secretary of Agriculture to charge fees for furnishing reproductions of GIS data, fees are not mandatory. And the Office of Management and Budget, the agency responsible for promulgating FOIA guidelines, has clarified that only statutes setting mandatory fees, rather than statutes setting discretionary ones, meet the exception to the FOIA fee waiver provision. The lower court therefore erred in holding that the groups were not entitled to the fee waiver.