Reading Room Document

General Accounting Office Request for Documents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

The General Accounting Office Act of 1980 gives the General Accounting Office (GAO) new power to enforce its requests for information from executive branch agencies, but does not limit or expand GAO's underlying statutory authority to obtain such information. In requesting documents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), GAO acts as an agent of the Congress and therefore has the benefit of the same protection against an executive agency's assertion of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemptions as does the Congress and its committees. Accordingly, FEMA may not assert FOIA exemption (b)(5) as a basis for declining to release documents to GAO. The executive branch may, in appropriate circumstances, exercise its constitutional authority to decline to release information in order to safeguard the discharge of its functions. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/24601/download.

September 10, 1980