Code of Federal Regulations Title 40. Protection of Environment § 40.1515.10 Obtaining available information

(a) When a request for information has been granted in whole or in part, CEQ will notify the requester in writing, inform the requester in the notice of any fee charged under § 1515.11 and will disclose records to the requester promptly on payment of any applicable fees. The requested material may be made available on CEQ's Online FOIA Center, http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/foia, and also in the form or format requested if the record is readily reproducible in that form or format with reasonable effort. When a form or format of the response is not requested, CEQ will respond in the form or format in which the document is most accessible to CEQ. “Readily reproducible” means, with respect to electronic format, that the requested record or records can be downloaded or transferred intact to a computer disk or other electronic medium using equipment currently in use by CEQ.

(b) Records disclosed in part will be marked or annotated to show information deleted, unless doing so would harm an interest protected by an applicable exemption. The location of the information deleted will also be indicated in the record, if technically feasible.

(c) The legislative history of the establishment of CEQ states that the Congress intended CEQ to be a confidential advisor to the President on matters of environmental policy. Therefore, members of the public should be aware that communications between CEQ and the President (including communications between their staff) may be confidential;  they will usually fall, at a minimum, within Exemption 5 of the Act. The Freedom of Information Officer shall review each request to determine whether the record is exclusively factual or may have factual portions which may be reasonably segregated and made available to the requester. Furthermore, on the recommendation of the CEQ FOIA Officer or Appeals Officer, CEQ will consider the release of an entire record, even if it comes within an exemption or contains policy advice, if its disclosure would not impair Executive policymaking processes or CEQ's participation in decisionmaking.