On June 12, 2020, the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal filed by InvestigateWest (Appellant) concerning a FOIA
request made to the Department of Energy's Golden Field Office (GFO). Appellant's FOIA request sought e-mails to and from a list of individuals concerning the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Interconnections Seam Study (Study). GFO searched the email accounts of two of the individuals identified by Appellant, but was unable to search the e-mail account of a third individual because that individual was no longer employed by NREL and the individual's e-mails were no longer retained as of the date of Appellant's FOIA request. GFO provided Appellant with over one hundred pages of responsive e-mails in response to his FOIA request, as well as copies of presentations and drafts of a paper summarizing preliminary results of the Study that were attached to the e-mails. GFO redacted portions of the e-mails and drafts of the paper under the deliberative process privilege of Exemption 5 of the FOIA. Appellant asserted on appeal that the search for records responsive to the request was inadequate, and that GFO inappropriate relied on Exemption 5 of the FOIA in withholding portions of responsive records because the content of the withheld records was scientific material concerning the results of the Study and not deliberative. OHA determined that GFO's search for responsive records was reasonable in light of the circumstances, and that there were no other viable avenues to pursue in searching for the third individual's e-mail records. With respect to Exemption 5, OHA reviewed unredacted copies of the records and determined that the portions withheld by GFO were pre-decisional and deliberative exchanges of ideas concerning refining the Study methodology and whether and in what form to publish materials concerning the Study's preliminary results which GFO properly withheld pursuant to Exemption 5. Therefore, OHA denied Appellant's appeal.