After receiving thousands of public comments, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reinterpreted the amendment, reaffirming FOIA's privacy trade and secrecy protections, and limiting requested data to published or cited research used by the federal government in developing legally binding agency actions. Thus far, the legislation has not been extensively tested. The National Institutes of Health has granted only four FOIA requests and denied three. The Environmental Protection Agency has received only a handful of requests.
Many scientists and scientific institutions, including both the NAS and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, saw the OMB's interpretation as a big improvement. Several panelists at the NAS workshop approved as well, but they expressed continued concern. Workshop attendee E. William Colgazier, CEO of the NAS and the National Research Council, was hoping the OMB agreement would be acceptable to all interested parties. But after hearing discussion at the workshop, ...
