(a) In general. Upon receipt of a FOIA request under §2.101(a) of this Subpart, the National FOIA Office will assign the request to an appropriate office within the Agency for processing. To determine which records are within the scope of a request, an office will ordinarily include only those records in the Agency's possession as of the date the request was received by one of the methods described in §2.101(a). The Agency will inform the requester if any other date is used.
(b) Authority to issue final determinations. The Administrator, Deputy Administrators, Assistant Administrators, Deputy Assistant Administrators, Regional Administrators, Deputy Regional Administrators, General Counsel, Deputy General Counsels, Regional Counsels, Deputy Regional Counsels, and Inspector General or those individuals' delegates, are authorized to make determinations required by 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(6)(A), including to issue final determinations whether to release or withhold a record or a portion of a record on the basis of responsiveness or under one or more exemptions under the FOIA, and to issue “no records” responses.
(c) Authority to grant or deny fee waivers or requests for expedited processing. EPA's Chief FOIA Officer or EPA's Chief FOIA Officer's delegates are authorized to grant or deny requests for fee waivers or requests for expedited processing.
(d) Consultations and referrals. When a request to EPA seeks records in its possession that originated with another Federal agency, the EPA office assigned to process the request shall either:
(1) In coordination with the National FOIA Office, consult with the Federal agency where the record or portion thereof originated and then respond to the request, or
(2) With the concurrence of the National FOIA Office, refer the request to the Federal agency where the record or portion thereof originated. The National FOIA Office will notify the requester whenever all or any part of the responsibility for responding to a request has been referred to another agency.
(e) Law enforcement information. Whenever a requester makes a request for a record containing information that relates to an investigation of a possible violation of law and the investigation originated with another agency, the assigned office, with the concurrence of the National FOIA Office, will refer the request to that other agency or consult with that other agency prior to making any release determination.
[88 FR 63024, Sept. 14, 2023]