Transparency Advocates Respond to Senator’s Demand for FOIA Audit at NIH

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) asks a question during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this file photograph. Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

Sen. Roger Marshall may not get the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compliance audit of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) he demands, but the Kansas Republican could still be cracking open the door to a new era in government transparency.

As The Epoch Times reported June 17, Mr. Marshall told the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) he wants the internal government watchdog to dig up every fact, good or bad, about how NIH has complied with the federal transparency law going back all the way to 2014.

Doing such audits is not in the HHS inspector general’s job description, but the revelation of recent FOIA violations by a host of top NIH officials merits extraordinary measures, according to a close adviser to the senator who asked not to be identified.

A spokesman for NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) could not be reached for comment on Mr. Marshall’s demand.

Mr. Marshall is a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

His demand, however, is drawing enthusiastic support among advocates of greater government transparency across the political spectrum.

“We would strongly encourage Congress to require exactly what Senator Marshall is proposing—at a minimum. Let’s find out which agencies are the worst actors and hold their leadership accountable,” Open the Books President Adam Andrzejewski told The Epoch Times.

“While the FOIA sets a vision for government transparency and lays out obligations for the feds, there’s really no enforcement mechanism attached. ... Beyond audits, we need consequences.”

Mr. Andrzejewski’s nonprofit watchdog organization has filed more than 50,000 FOIA requests in recent years. The late Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was chairman of Mr. Andrzejewski’s group.

FOIA Reforms

Describing the FOIA as “a key law that holds public officials to account and one that is often lowest on the priority list for government officials, some of whom seek to subvert it at every turn,” Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute, told The Epoch Times the statute that became law in 1966 needs comprehensive reforms.

“Congress needs to make new FOIA laws and make FOIA oversight a priority, not just when it is contentious but also when it is routine. Improved [inspector general] oversight is a small portion of a broad mosaic required to vindicate the public’s right to know,” Mr. Schuman said when asked about Mr. Marshall’s demand regarding NIH.

Mr. Schuman pointed out that only some of the 72 inspector generals currently conduct reviews of agencies’ compliance with the FOIA. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, for example, found in its latest review of the IRS that the federal tax agency generally conformed to the FOIA’s requirements in 2023.

Mr. Schuman is a former policy director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Also agreeing with Mr. Marshall’s demand was Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“The FOIA is both one of the most important tools for public awareness,” Mr. Howell said. “Clearly, it is not working. ... It quite literally takes a law firm, which we built from scratch, to get answers from our own government.”

The FOIA was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 after it was passed on a bipartisan basis in Congress. Rep. John Moss (D-Calif.) wrote and introduced the original FOIA bill draft, and it was co-sponsored by Rep. Donald Rumsfeld (R-Ill.), who would later become secretary of defense under President George W. Bush.