(a) It shall be the policy of the ATBCB to comply with requests for documents made under the FOIA using the most efficient and least costly methods available. Requesters will be charged fees, in accordance with the administrative provisions and fee schedule set forth below, for searching for, reviewing (in the case of commercial use requesters only), and duplicating requested records.

(b) Categories of requesters. For the purpose of standard FOIA fee assessment, the four categories of requesters are: Commercial use requesters; educational and non-commercial scientific institution requesters; requesters who are representatives of the news media; and, all other requesters (see § 1120.2 (l) through (o), Definitions).

(c) Levels of fees. Levels of fees prescribed for each category of requester are as follows:

(1) Commercial Use Requesters—When the ATBCB receives a request for documents which appears to be a request for commercial use, the Board may assess charges in accordance with the fee schedule set forth below, which recover the full direct costs of searching for, reviewing for release, and duplicating the records sought. Costs for time spent reviewing records to determine whether they are exempt from mandatory disclosure applies to the initial review only. No fees will be assessed for reviewing records, at the administrative appeal level, of the exemptions already applied.

(2) Educational and Non-Commercial Scientific Institution Requesters—The ATBCB shall provide documents to requesters in this category for the cost of reproduction alone, in accordance with the fee schedule set forth below, excluding charges for the first 100 pages of reproduced documents.

(i) To be eligible for inclusion in this category, requesters must demonstrate the request is being made under the auspices of a qualifying institution and that the records are not sought for a commercial use, but are sought in furtherance of scholarly (if the request is from an educational institution) or scientific (it the request is from a non-commercial scientific institution) research.

(ii) Requesters eligible for free search must reasonably describe the records sought.

(3) Requesters Who Are Representatives of the News Media—The ATBCB shall provide documents to requesters in this category for the cost of reproduction alone, in accordance with the fee schedule set forth below, excluding charges for the first 100 pages of reproduced documents.

(4) All Other Requestors—The ATBCB shall charge requestors who do not fit into any of the categories described above, fees which recover the full direct cost of searching for and reproducing records that are responsive to the request, except that the first two hours of search time and the first 100 pages of reproduction shall be furnished without charge.

(d) Schedule of FOIA fees.

(1) Record search (ATBCB employees)—$14.00 per hour

(2) Document review (ATBCB employees)—$20.00 per hour

(3) Duplication of documents (paper copy of paper original)—$.20 per page

(e) No charge shall be made:

(1) If the costs of routine collection and processing of the fee are likely to equal or exceed the amount of the fee;

(2) For any request made by an individual or group of individuals falling into the categories listed at paragraph (b) of this section, and described in paragraph (c) of this section, (excepting commercial use requests) the first two hours of search time and first 100 pages of duplication;

(3) For the cost of preparing or reviewing letters of response to a request or appeal;

(4) For responding to a request for one copy of the official personnel record of the requestor;

(5) For furnishing records requested by either House of Congress, or by duly authorized committee or subcommittee or Congress, unless the records are requested for the benefit of an individual Member of Congress or for a constituent;

(6) For furnishing records requested by and for the official use of other Federal agencies; or

(7) For furnishing records needed by an A&TBCB contractor or grantee to perform the work required by the A&TBCB contract or grant.

(f) Requestors may be charged for unsuccessful or unproductive searches or for searches when records located are determined to be exempt from disclosure.

(g) Where the ATBCB reasonably believes that a requestor or group of requestors is attempting to break a request down into a series of requests for the purpose of evading the assessment of fees, the ATBCB shall aggregate any such requests and charge accordingly.

(a) Information available in whole or in part in computerized form which is disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act is available to the public as follows:

(1) When there is an existing printout from the computer which permits copying the printout, the material will be made available at the per page rate stated in § 1120.51(a) for each 8 1/2 by 11 inch page.

(2) When there is not an existing printout of information disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act, a printout shall be made if the applicant pays the cost to the A&TBCB as stated in paragraph (a)(3) of this section.

(3) Obtaining information from computerized records frequently involves a minimum computer time cost of approximately $100 per request. Multiple requests involving the same subject may cost less per request. Services of personnel in the nature of a search shall be charged for at rates prescribed in § 1120.51(a). A charge shall be made for the computer time involved based upon the prevailing level of costs to Government organizations and upon the particular types of computer and associated equipment and the amounts of time on such equipment that are utilized. A charge shall also be made for any substantial amounts of special supplies or materials used to contain, present, or make available the output of computers based upon the prevailing levels of costs to Government organizations and upon the type and amount of the supplies and materials that are used.

(b) Information in the Board's computerized records which could be produced only by additional programming of the computer, thus producing information not previously in being, is not required to be furnished under the Freedom of Information Act. In view of the usually heavy workloads of the computers used by the Board, such a service cannot ordinarily be offered to the public.

(a) Method of payment. All fee payments shall be in the form of a check or money order payable to the order of the “U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board” and shall be sent (accompanied by a reference to the pertinent Request Indentification Number(s)) to the address in § 1120.23.

(b) Charging interest. The ATBCB may charge interest to those requestors failing to pay fees assessed in accordance with the procedures described in § 1120.51. Interest charges, computed at the rate prescribed in section 3717 of title 31 U.S.C.A., will be assessed on the full amount billed starting on the 31st day following the day on which the bill was sent.

(c) Advance payment or assurance of payment. (1) When an ATBCB office determines or estimates that the allowable charges a requestor may be required to pay are likely to exceed $250.00, the ATBCB may require the requestor to make an advance payment or arrangements to pay the entire fee before continuing to process the request. The ATBCB shall promptly inform the requestor (by telephone, if practicable) of the need to make an advance payment or arrangements to pay the fee. That office need not search for, review, duplicate, or disclose records in response to any request by that requestor until he or she pays, or makes acceptable arrangements to pay, the total amount of fees due (or estimated to become due) under this subpart.

(2) Where a requestor has previously failed to pay a fee charged in a timely fashion, the ATBCB may require the requestor to pay the full amount owed, plus any applicable interest, as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, and to make an advance payment of the full amount of the estimated fee before any new or pending requests will be processed from that requestor.

(3) In those instances described in paragraphs (c)(1) and (2) of this section, the administrative time limits prescribed in § 1120.33(d) will begin only after the ATBCB has received all fee payments due or acceptable arrangements have been made to pay all fee payments due.

(d) Effect of the Debt Collection Act of 1982 (Pub. L. 97-365). Requestors are advised that the ATBCB shall use the authorities of the Debt Collection Act of 1982, including disclosure to consumer reporting agencies and use of collection agencies, where appropriate, to encourage repayment of debts arising from freedom of information act requests.

(e) Waiver or reduction of fees. (1) Records responsive to a request under 5 U.S.C. 552 shall be furnished without charge or at a charge reduced below that establsihed under paragraph (d) of § 1120.51 where the Freedom of Information Officer determines, based upon information provided by a requestor in support of a fee waiver request or otherwise made known to the Freedom of Information Officer, that disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor. Requests for a waiver or reduction of fees shall be considered on a case-by-case basis.

(2) In order to determine whether the first fee waiver requirement is met—i.e., that disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government—Freedom of Information Officer shall consider the following four factors in sequence:

(i) The subject of the request: Whether the subject of the requested records concerns “the operations or activities of the government.” The subject matter of the requested records, in the context of the request, must specifically concern identifiable operations or activities of the federal government—with a connection that is direct and clear, not remote or attenuated. Furthermore, the records must be sought for their informative value with respect to those government operations or activities; a request for access to records for their intrinsic informational content alone will not satisfy this threshold consideration.

(ii) The informative value of the information to be disclosed: Whether the disclosure is “likely to contribute” to an understanding of government operations or activities. The disclosable portions of the requested records must be meaningfully informative on specific government operations or activities in order to hold potential for contributing to increase public understanding of those operations and activities. The disclosure of information that already is in the public domain, in either a duplicative or a substantially identical form, would not be likely to contribute to such understanding, as nothing new would be added to the public record.

(iii) The contribution to an understanding of the subject by the public likely to result from disclosure: Whether disclosure of the requested information will contribute to “public understanding.” The disclosure must contribute to the understanding of the public at large, as opposed to the individual understanding of the requestor or a narrow segment of interested persons. A requestor's identity and qualifications—e.g., expertise in the subject area and ability and intention to effectively convey information to the general public—should be considered. It reasonably may be presumed that a representative of the news media (as defined in § 1120.2(o)) who has access to the means of public dissemination readily will be able to satisfy this consideration. Requests from libraries or other record repositories (or requestors who intend merely to disseminate information to such institutions) shall be analyzed, like those of other requestors to identify a particular person who represents that he actually will use the requested information in scholarly or other analytic work and then disseminate it to the general public.

(iv) The significance of the contribution to public understanding: Whether the disclosure is likely to contribute “significantly” to public understanding of government operations or activities. The public's understanding of the subject matter in question, as compared to the level of public understanding existing prior to the disclosure, must be likely to be enhanced by the disclosure to a significant extent. Freedom of Information Officer shall not make separate value judgments as to whether information, even though it in fact would contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government, is “important” enough to be made public.

(3) In order to determine whether the second fee waiver requirement is met—i.e., that disclosure of the requested information is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor—the Freedom of Information Officer shall consider the following two factors in sequence:

(i) The existence and magnitude of a commercial interest: Whether the requestor has a commercial interest that would be furthered by the requested disclosure. The Freedom of Information Officer shall consider all commercial interests of the requester (with reference to the definition of “commercial use” in § 1120.2(l)) or any person on whose behalf the requestor may be acting, but shall consider only those interests which would be furthered by the requested disclosure. In assessing the magnitude of identified commercial interests, consideration shall be given to the role that such FOIA-disclosed information plays with respect to those commercial interests, as well as to the extent to which FOIA disclosures serve those interests overall. Requestors shall be given a reasonable opportunity in the administrative process to provide information bearing upon this consideration.

(ii) The primary interest in disclosure: Whether the magnitude of the identified commercial interest of the requestor is sufficiently large, in comparison with the public interest in disclosure, that disclosure is “primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor.” A fee waiver or reduction is warranted only where, once the “public interest” standard set out in paragraph (e)(2) of this section is satisfied, that public interest can fairly be regarded as greater in magnitude than that of the requestor's commercial interest in disclosure. The Freedom of Information Officer shall ordinarily presume that where a news media requestor has satisfied the “public interest” standard, that will be the interest primarily served by disclosure to that requestor. Disclosure to data brokers or others who compile and market government information for direct economic return shall not be presumed to primarily serve “public interest.”

(4) Where only a portion of the requested records satisfies both of the requirements for a waiver or reduction of fees under this paragraph, a waiver or reduction shall be granted only as to that portion.

(5) Requests for the waiver or reduction of fees shall address each of the factors listed in paragraphs (e) (2) and (3) of this section, as they apply to each record request. One hundred pages of reproduction shall be furnished without charge.

(6) A request for reduction or waiver of fees shall be addressed to the Freedom of Information Officer at the address shown in § 1120.23. The ATBCB office which is responding to the request for records shall initially determine whether the fee shall be reduced or waived and shall so inform the requestor. The initial determination may be appealed by letter addressed to the address shown in § 1120.23. The General Counsel or his or her designee shall decide such appeals.