February 7, 1974
Page 2620
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND THE FEDERAL ENERGY OFFICE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, Mr. William E. Simon, the Administrator of the Federal Energy Office, gave an excellent and encouraging address to the National Press Club last Tuesday on the subject of press access to official information about energy. Accessibility to the press, he observed, is crucial to the Government's efforts to develop popular support for the work and decisions of the Energy Office, and he added, "We can get that confidence by earning it."
In setting standards for handling journalists' inquiries, Mr. Simon was precise about the way he would earn confidence–
Within 24 hours of our receiving your requests for information, we will issue an acknowledgment, or grant the request. Within ten working days, I personally guarantee that you will get the information you seek, or have the opportunity to appeal. Appeals will be ruled upon within no more than ten days.
As he pointed out, those time limits go far beyond the existing requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. They are even stricter than the ones I proposed last March in S. 1142, to amend the act, and stricter than the deadlines set in S. 2543, the thoughtful bill Senator KENNEDY has offered for the same purpose.
Yet our amendments have been repeatedly criticized by spokesmen of various Government agencies for setting unrealistically short deadlines. Mr. Simon's pledge is the best answer I know to such complaints. If an office as busy as his can handle requests for information in the time he promises, there is no reason that other agencies cannot do the same. Mr. Simon suggested that it might be "inefficient to run an open agency." He said that such a practice "costs time and money." But he declared, and I completely agree–
Curtailing secrecy is one thing we can do to help restore confidence in government. Being open, the Federal Energy Office can ask for public confidence. If it were a closed agency, we could not.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of Mr. Simon's remarks on freedom of information policy in the Federal Energy Office be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
REMARKS BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM E. SIMON, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL ENERGY OFFICE, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
It's great to be back at the National Press Club. The last time I was here, a week ago last Friday, was for the inauguration of your new President, Clyde LaMotte. That was, you will recall, a somber occasion. I am grateful to Sarah McClendon for inviting me to that ceremony, and to Clyde for inviting me here today and introducing me.
I neglected to mention last time that we are beginning a new allocations program of specific interest to you all. We are going to cut back on the power of the press. Effective immediately, you in the press will be allocated no more power than you had during your base period ... 1812.
Seriously though, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the energy crisis. During the two months since the Federal Energy Office was created, a primary concern of mine has been getting our message out to the people across this country.
You and I share a responsibility for communicating to the American people. We must present the truth, as we can perceive it, about America's energy problems and prospects, about alternatives for the future, about what government is doing and has done.
I have a responsibility for managing the energy crisis, and I am accountable, to you and to Congress and to the American people, for my actions and decisions.
You know that the energy crisis is real. We have fuel shortages now, and we're going to have them for several years to come. We Americans consume more fuel than we produce. We have thus become increasingly dependent upon imported oil – a dependency which has an impact not only upon our domestic economy but also upon our balance of payments position as well. We must respond, now.
That is, by definition, a crisis.
We've been telling the American people this, but I'm not sure they're listening and accepting what we say. Today, I am going to forego my ritual recitation of consumption, conservation, allocations, and audits, and focus instead upon the major obstacle we face in turning today's objectives into tomorrow's achievements. The latest surveys indicate that more than a third of the public believes that the Federal Government is most responsible for the energy crisis.
Pollster Lou Harris called it the "crisis of confidence," and he said two months ago that "Public confidence in government must generally be reported as being lower than a constituent democracy can afford."
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, as we all know, this country does not hold together because all the people support a set of policies. America will not fall apart because of policy disagreements. The people can disagree with and try to change an Act of Congress, or an action or decision of the Executive Branch or the courts. But a democracy cannot stand – and remain free – unless virtually all of the people accept its institutions; not necessarily the actual policies of the government, but the way those policies are made.
The energy crisis and this crisis of confidence are integrated. We cannot consider one without the other. We cannot solve one without solving the other. We cannot fail to solve one, without failing to solve the other.
It was exposure to the public, through management responsibility for the energy crisis, that brought me to realize the magnitude of our national disillusionment. Without question, the most serious impediment to the effective performance of my job has been, and continues to be, that sad and overworked word, credibility.
This has been a year of great stress for governmental credibility. The fact is that the public is no longer willing to give public officials the benefit of the doubt. If there is doubt, most of the citizenry these days will presume they are being misled, until the doubt can be dispelled.
The American people have lost confidence. They have, however, not transferred this confidence from the Executive Branch to the Congress or the Supreme Court. No, the American people have simply lost confidence in all government.
And they have also lost confidence in medicine, in higher education, the military, organized religion and labor, big business, and virtually every institution you and I were brought up to trust.
This trend must be reversed.
Nobody likes to be doubted. You certainly know that – the polls indicate that most Americans don't have a great deal of faith in the fairness and accuracy of the press. And you, like me, need credibility to do your job.
I have been accustomed to being believed. I like to think this is because I lay the facts on the table; I tell the truth as best I can and so does my staff.
We all should be greatly disturbed by growing cynicism in the land. As a father of seven children, I wonder, what happens to a generation of kids growing up with the notion that their government and their basic institutions are not to be trusted?
Translated to our activities in the Federal Energy Office where we must have the cooperation of the American people in conservation efforts, we are especially concerned about this "crisis of confidence." If people don't believe us when we tell them there is an energy crisis, if they think we are acting in cahoots with the major oil companies to boost profits at the expense of the people, then they will not cooperate. They will not conserve. And if that happened, the current crisis could come to be a catastrophe.
CONFIDENCE AND SECRECY
If there was any single outstanding lesson for public officials to learn from that Harris survey, it is that the American people crave openness in government.
The relationship between government information policies and democracy is close and direct.
The rights to vote or run for office mean little without the rights to know the activities of the incumbent government, and make or hear informed criticism of public officials and policies.
As President Nixon observed in his State of the Union address last week, a society's freedom can be measured by the extent to which it protects the right of personal privacy. A democracy's validity can be measured by the extent to which a people can know about the affairs of the government.
If the government knows or can find out what the people are up to, but the people do not know and cannot find out what the government is up to, then the people don't control their government; it controls them.
Many of you who cover the Federal Energy Office have told us that it is a very open agency. And most of you, I think, believe that we are putting out the most accurate information we can get on the energy crisis. But the American people don't all believe us, and they won't all believe you.
This is a complex situation that contains no simplistic answers. We cannot point a finger at the government, at the politicians and officials, at the oil companies, at the Arabs or Israelis, or at the environmentalists. We must all accept a share of the blame. What matters is that once we recognize that mistakes have been made, we work together to develop energy policies and programs that will put us on the road to self-sufficiency with the strong backing of the American people. We at FEO need the confidence of the American people, because we need the voluntary cooperation of the American people.
How can we get that confidence, if the people hold their government in such low regard that they doubt its word before it speaks? We can get that confidence by earning it.
One way to earn it is through being open – not just when we are right, and proud of what we have done because we think people will like it, but also when we are wrong, when we have goofed.
People in bureaucracies tend to want to be secretive, not just to cover their mistakes, but to avoid having to answer a lot of questions they regard as nuisances at best and threats at worst. I know that, and you know that. The pressures for secrecy in bureaucracies are not caused by malice. They are a part of the nature of bureaucracies.
The Federal Freedom of Information Act attempts to countermand inherent tendencies toward secrecy in government. Nearly seven years after the FOI Act went into effect we all know that it has not eliminated unwarranted secrecy. By the admission of the Congressional committee that wrote the law, it doesn't work. Information that belongs in the public domain is withheld and this compounds the entire problem.
As journalists, you are familiar with delays of access to government agency information. It is an old and established legal principle that "Justice delayed is Justice denied." For journalists working under a deadline to find out the significance of breaking news, the delay of access to public information can amount to the denial of that access.
At the Federal Energy Office, we want to design Freedom of Information mechanisms to provide maximum possible access to information. At the same time, we have some concerns that militate against simply throwing open the doors and drawers and telling people to help yourselves.
In the first place, we handle sensitive national security data, some of which we cannot make public.
A second consideration is that we receive proprietary data – trade secrets of the energy companies and private tax information – and information that, to release, might substantially endanger free market competition. We cannot disclose this without crippling our ability to gather such data in the future.
Third, we issue regulations and make policy decisions having profound and direct impact upon the American economy. If we had to release our plans before being prepared to act upon them, hoarding, profit-taking, the buying or selling of stock, and general economic chaos could result.
Fourth, we receive some information from other agencies that other laws require the government to keep secret, for example, reports from the Bureau of the Census and Internal Revenue Service.
Also, we have to be concerned about the administrative effort necessary to comply with requests for access to information. For requests from industry sources, intended for private use rather than general news publication, we will have to assess a fee.
And we have certain other kinds of information – for example, medical data in our employees' personnel files – which, to disclose would amount to an unfair invasion of the right to personal privacy.
Nonetheless, the American people do not want excuses. You have seen government agencies cover up mistakes, incompetence, and possible illegalities under the claim that information sought by reporters was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
The FOI Act serves to force disclosure of information when an agency wants to keep it secret.
Later this week I will send to the Federal Register our operating regulations for Freedom of Information. These regulations go far beyond the requirements of the law, and reflect our concern that openness shall be the firm rule, not merely a temporary expedient.
The outstanding features are these: most requests for information will be handled as they have been. But for problems with access, we will have an Information Access Officer. This officer and I will be the only persons authorized to deny an initial request for information.
Within 24 hours of our receiving your requests for information, we will issue an acknowledgment, or grant the request. Within ten working days, I personally guarantee that you will get the information you seek, or have the opportunity to appeal. Appeals will be ruled upon within no more than ten days.
Curtailing secrecy is one thing we can do to help restore confidence in government. Being open, the Federal Energy Office can ask for public confidence. If it were a closed agency, we could not.
But we must do more. We must be honest, not merely in the words we issue by mouth or press release, but also in the impressions we convey to people. If the people believe something that once was true, and it later becomes false, we must correct the false impression – even if it is not of our making.
To restore public confidence is not an option for this government, any more than collecting taxes is an option. This is imperative. We can quibble about how it is to be done, but it must be done.
Only then can we achieve, to use Lou Harris' fine words again, "... an America, and indeed a world, in which a spirit abounds where people are in a mood to attack their common problems instead of attacking each other."
Over the years, you in the press have proven yourselves. I couldn't put anything over on you if I wanted to ... and I don't. I want you to get the whole story on the energy crisis, and tell it to the public.
We cannot afford to delude ourselves. It is time to inform and alert the American people. They must be armed with enough facts to evaluate our performance directly, not through clouds of public relations from those who support or oppose our policies.
Last week, my Office of Public Affairs had a meeting with four reporters who regularly cover energy in Washington. The purpose was to get suggestions about how the Federal Energy Office can better serve the needs of the press in getting information out. They had a few criticisms, but I was pleased to learn that the reporters who visited us felt that no Federal agency is as accessible as the FEO.
It is perhaps inefficient to run an open agency. The time we spend answering queries from the press could be devoted to other work. It costs time and money.
The same can be said for the process of democratic elections; it ties up the time of public officials and costs the taxpayers a lot of money. It is a part of the price we as citizens pay for the right to run our government. To keep that right, we must see that public business is, truly, public business.