An account of delays from the US Mine Safety and Health Administation in processing what the requestor feels should be simple, routine requests in the wake of a disaster.
Although MSHA stated that my requests for expedited processing were granted, the letters also said that I could probably expect the actual responses — wait for it — “within 45 working days after the date of this letter.”
Because the acknowledgement letters were dated between April 23 and April 27, by my calculation that would put the actual responses around the end of June.
That would make a total of up to 11 weeks from request to response. The FOIA law requires response within 4 weeks — technically, 20 working days — for ordinary FOIA requests, let alone for expedited ones.
It's always a question, when dealing with a bureaucracy that is slow to release unpublished documents that should be public, whether it's easier to ask them to publish them or whether it's easier to get them to release them promptly under FOIA. The FOIA process can go through legal review, whereas a public relations or public information driven process isn't presumed to be so adversarial that it requires a legal review. Be prepared to ask that documents be made public, if you are in a hurry to get them at all.
