105-60.305-6—Reviews.

GSA makes available to the public the materials described under 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(2), which are listed in § 105-60.302 through an extensive electronic home page, http://www.gsa.gov/. A public handbook listing those materials as described in § 105-60.304 is available at GSA's Central Office in Washington, DC, and at the website at http://www.gsa.gov/staff/c/ca/pub1.htm. Members of the public who do not have the means to access this information electronically, and who are not located in the Washington, DC area, may contact the Freedom of Information Act office in any of the regional offices listed in this regulation. These offices will make arrangements for members of the public to access the information at a computer located at the FOIA office. Reasonable copying services are provided at the fees specified in § 105-60.305.

GSA materials available under this subpart are as follows:

(a) Final opinions, including concurring and dissenting opinions and orders, made in the adjudication of cases.

(b) Those statements and policy and interpretations that have been adopted by GSA and are not published in the Federal Register.

(c) Administrative staff manuals and instructions to staff affecting a member of the public unless these materials are promptly published and copies offered for sale.

(a) Locations. Selected areas containing the materials available for public inspection and copying, described in this § 105-60.302, are located in the following places:

Central Office (GSA Headquarters),

General Services Administration, Washington, DC.

Telephone: 202-501-2262

FAX: 202-501-2727,

Email: gsa.foia@gsa.gov

1800 F Street, NW. (CAI), Washington, DC 20405

Office of the Inspector General

FOIA Officer, Office of Inspector General (J)

General Services Administration

1800 F Street NW., Room 5324

Washington, DC 20405

New England Region

General Services Administration (1AB)

(Comprised of the States of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont)

Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., Federal Building, 10 Causeway Street, Boston, MA 02222

Telephone: 617-565-8100

FAX: 617-565-8101

Northeast and Caribbean Region

(Comprised of the States of New Jersey, New York, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands)

General Services Administration (2AR)

26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY 10278

Telephone: 212-264-1234

FAX: 212-264-2760

Mid-Atlantic Region

(Comprised of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, excluding the Washington, DC metropolitan area)

General Services Administration (3ADS), 100 Penn Square East, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Telephone: 215-656-5530

FAX: 215-656-5590

Southeast Sunbelt Region

(Comprised of the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee)

General Services Administration (4E), 401 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA 30365

Telephone: 404-331-5103

FAX: 404-331-1813

Great Lakes Region

(Comprised of the States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin)

General Services Administration (5ADB), 230 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL 60604

Telephone: 312-353-5383

FAX: 312-353-5385

Heartland Region

(Comprised of the States of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska)

General Services Administration (6ADB), 1500 East Bannister Road, Kansas City, MO 64131

Telephone: 816-926-7203

FAX: 816-823-1167

Greater Southwest Region

(Comprised of the States of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma)

General Services Administration (7ADQ), 819 Taylor Street, Fort Worth, TX 76102

Telephone: 817-978-3902

FAX: 817-978-4867

Rocky Mountain Region

(Comprised of the States of Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming)

Business Service Center, General Services Administration (8PB-B), Building 41, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225

Telephone: 303-236-7408

FAX: 303-236-7403

Pacific Rim Region

(Comprised of the States of Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona, Guam, and Trust Territory of the Pacific)

Business Service Center, General Services Administration (9ADB), 525 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 941105

Telephone: 415-522-2715

FAX: 415-522-2705

Northwest/Arctic Region

(Comprised of the States of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington)

General Services Administration (10L), GSA Center, 15th and C Streets, SW., Auburn, WA 98002

Telephone: 206-931-7007

FAX: 206-931-7195

National Capital Region

(Comprised of the District of Columbia and the surrounding metropolitan area)

General Services Administration (WPFA-L), 7th and D Streets SW., Washington, DC 20407

Telephone: 202-708-5854

FAX: 202-708-4655.

(b) Time. The offices listed above will be open to the public during the business hours of the GSA office where they are located.

(c) Reproduction services and fees. The GSA Central Office or the Regional Business Service Centers will furnish reasonable copying and reproduction services for available materials at the fees specified in § 105-60.305.

GSA publishes a handbook for the public that identifies information regarding any matter described in § 105-60.302. This handbook also lists published information available from GSA and describes the procedures the public may use to obtain information using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This handbook may be obtained without charge from any of the GSA FOIA offices listed in § 105-60.303(a), or at the GSA Internet Homepage (http://www.gsa.gov/staff/c/ca/cai/links.htm ).

For the purpose of this part:

(a) A statute specifically providing for setting the level of fees for particular types of records (5 U.S.C. 552(a)(4)(A)(vii)) means any statute that specifically requires a Government agency to set the level of fees for particular types of records, as opposed to a statute that generally discusses such fees. Fees are required by statute to:

(1) Make Government information conveniently available to the public and to private sector organizations;

(2) Ensure that groups and individuals pay the cost of publications and other services which are for their special use so that these costs are not borne by the general taxpaying public;

(3) Operate an information dissemination activity on self-sustaining basis to the maximum extent possible; or

(4) Return revenue to the Treasury for defraying, wholly or in part, appropriated funds used to pay the cost of disseminating Government information.

(b) The term direct costs means those expenditures which GSA actually incurs in searching for and duplicating (and in the case of commercial requesters, reviewing and redacting) documents to respond to a FOIA request. Direct costs include, for example, the salary of the employee performing the work (the basic rate of pay for the employee plus 16 percent of that rate to cover benefits), and the cost of operating duplicating machinery. Overhead expenses such as costs of space, and heating or lighting the facility where the records are stored are not included in direct costs.

(c) The term search includes all time spent looking for material that is responsive to a request, including line-by-line identification of material within documents. Searches will be performed in the most efficient and least expensive manner so as to minimize costs for both the agency and the requester. Line-by-line searches will not be undertaken when it would be more efficient to duplicate the entire document. Search for responsive material is not the same as review of a record to determine whether it is exempt from disclosure in whole or in part (see paragraph (e) of this section. Searches may be done manually or by computer using existing programming or new programming when this would not significantly interfere with the operation of the automated system in question.

(d) The term duplication means the process of making a copy of a document in response to a FOIA request. Copies can take the form of paper, microform audiovisual materials, or magnetic types or disks. To the extent practicable, GSA will provide a copy of the material in the form specified by the requester.

(e) The term review means the process of examining documents located in response to a request to determine if any portion of that document is permitted to be withheld and processing any documents for disclosure. See § 105-60.305-6.

(f) The term commercial-use request means a request from or on behalf of one who seeks information for a use or purpose that furthers the commercial, trade, or profit interests of the requester or person on whose behalf the request is made. GSA will determine whether a requester properly belongs in this category by determining how the requester will use the documents.

(g) The term educational institution means a preschool, a public or private elementary or secondary school, an institution of graduate higher education, an institution of undergraduate higher education, an institution of professional education, or an institution of vocational education which operates a program or programs of scholarly research.

(h) The term noncommercial scientific institution means an institution that is not operated on a “commercial” basis as that term is used in paragraph (f) of this section and which is operated solely for the purpose of conducting scientific research the results of which are not intended to promote any particular product or industry.

(i) The term representative of the news media means any person actively gathering news for an entity that is organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. The term news means information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public. Examples of news media include television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large, and publishers of periodicals (but only in those instances when they can qualify as disseminators of “news”) who make their products available for purchase or subscription by the general public. “Freelance” journalists will be regarded as working for a news organization if they can demonstrate a solid basis for expecting publication through that organization even though they are not actually employed by it.

This subpart sets forth policies and procedures to be followed in the assessment and collection of fees from a requester for the search, review, and reproduction of GSA records.

GSA records available to the public are displayed in the Business Service Center for each GSA region. The address and phone number of the Business Service Centers are listed in § 105-60.303. Certain material related to bids (excluding construction plans and specifications) and any material displayed are available without charge upon request.

(a) GSA will make a record not subject to exemption available at a time and place mutually agreed upon by GSA and the requester at fees shown in § 105-60.305-10. Waivers of these fees are available under the conditions described in § 105-60.305-13. GSA will agree to:

(1) Show the originals to the requester;

(2) Make one copy available at a fee; or

(3) A combination of these alternatives.

(b) GSA will make copies of voluminous records as quickly as possible. GSA may, in its discretion, make a reasonable number of additional copies for a fee when commercial reproduction services are not available to the requester.

(a) GSA may charge for the time spent in the following activities in determining “search time” subject to applicable fees as provided in § 105-60.305-10 :

(1) Time spent in trying to locate GSA records which come within the scope of the request;

(2) Time spent in either transporting a necessary agency searcher to a place of record storage, or in transporting records to the locations of a necessary agency searcher; and

(3) Direct costs of the use of computer time to locate and extract requested records.

(b) GSA will not charge for the time spent in monitoring a requester's inspection of disclosed agency records.

(c) GSA may assess fees for search time even if the search proves unsuccessful or if the records located are exempt from disclosure.

(a) GSA will charge only commercial-use requesters for review time.

(b) GSA will charge for the time spent in the following activities in determining “review time” subject to applicable fees as provided in § 105-60.305-10 :

(1) Time spent in examining a requested record to determine whether any or all of the record is exempt from disclosure, including time spent consulting with submitters of requested information; and

(2) Time spent in deleting exempt matter being withheld from records otherwise made available.

(1) Time spent in resolving issues of law or policy regarding the application of exemptions; or

(2) Review at the administrative appeal level of an exemption already applied. However, records or portions of records withheld in full under an exemption which is subsequently determined not to apply may be reviewed again to determine the applicability of other exemptions not previously considered. GSA will charge for such subsequent review.

If fees for search, review, and reproduction will exceed $25 but will be less than $250, the requester must provide written assurance of payment before GSA will process the request. If this assurance is not included in the initial request, GSA will notify the requester that assurance of payment is required before the request is processed. GSA will offer requesters an opportunity to modify the request to reduce the fee.

(a) Fees over $250. GSA will require prepayment of fees for search, review, and reproduction which are likely to exceed $250. When the anticipated total fee exceeds $250, the requester will receive notice to prepay and at the same time will be given an opportunity to modify his or her request to reduce the fee. When fees will exceed $250, GSA will notify the requester that it will not start processing a request until payment is received.

(b) Delinquent payments. As noted in § 105-6.305-12(d), requesters who are delinquent in paying for previous requests will be required to repay the old debt and to prepay for any subsequent request. GSA will inform the requester that it will process no additional requests until all fees are paid.

Requesters should pay fees by check or money order made out to the General Services Administration and addressed to the official named by GSA in its correspondence. Payment may also be made by means of Mastercard or Visa. For information concerning payment by credit cards, call 816-926-7551.

CFR

105-60.305-6—Reviews.