“Usually when public comments are filed with a federal agency, they are made, well, public. Not so for the Bureau of Land Management, which is demanding that in some cases, such comments only be obtained through the cumbersome Freedom of Information Act.
“Ultimately, it’s the goal of the agency to expend fewer resources on handling FOIA. They consider it to be only a means for opponents of the Department of Interior to get ammunition to use against them in the public relations sphere,” said Kevin Bell, staff counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an environmental group.”
