ELR Citation: ELR 20074
No(s). CIV.05-10450 RBC (D. Mass. Apr 13, 2006)

A court holds that certain documents relating to the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) are not exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The CAMR regulates mercury emissions from power plants nationwide. During the rulemaking process, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used a proprietary computerized model called the Integrated Planning Model (IPM) to prepare forecasts used in evaluating the relative costs and benefits of alternative proposed regulatory approaches to pollution control. The Massachusetts Attorney General filed suit against EPA challenging the CAMR. In so doing, he filed a FOIA request for the IPM results of several regulatory alternatives. EPA denied the request, claiming that they were exempt under FOIA Exemption No. 5. Exemption No. 5, however, does not apply because the IPM runs are not deliberative materials nor part of the deliberative process. Rather, the IPM runs are investigative tools that generate raw data or empirical evidence used by EPA in its rulemaking, and releasing the IPM runs would not reveal the Agency's "protectable thought processes."