The Art of Access — Strategies for Acquiring Environmental Records

Government documents held in the main library at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Photo: University of Illinois/CE Crane via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Feature: The Art of Access — Strategies for Acquiring Environmental Records

By David Cuillier

If it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to wrangle public records out of officials, especially environmental documents, it’s not your imagination.

On average, if you asked for a public record in the United States 10 years ago, you might have gotten it about half the time. Now it’s down to a third of the time across all jurisdictions, and just 12% at the federal level.

 

Even the U.S. Department of Justice’s

own statistics show that the

full release of records has declined.

 

Even the U.S. Department of Justice’s own statistics show that the full release of records has declined, from 38% in 2011 to 12% in 2024, and the average response time has nearly doubled, from 24 to 44 days.

Environmental records were already among the toughest to obtain. The 619 records requests submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2010 through the nonprofit MuckRock averaged 411 days to fulfill (as of publication), and just 41% yielded any records.

And it’s all getting worse under the Trump administration, which has removed agency websites, purged environmental data, fired Freedom of Information Act staff and dismantled the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee.

But now is not the time to cower. Now is the time to ramp up your game by mastering the art of access.

Here’s how to acquire public records faster and cheaper, and ensure you get the most telling information available.

 

Location, location, location

Finding the specific records that will serve you best will save you (and the government) time, money and angst.

For example, one study showed that if you mention the specific EPA regional office that has the records, or the specific record name, the chance of getting what you need jumps from 42% to 62%.

Take time to sift through an agency’s website to note every activity and document mentioned. In the homepage search box, type “form” to see the myriad of forms people fill out — all of that information is fed into a database you can request.

 

If government employees say that

only the public information officer can

speak to the press, challenge this policy

as patently unconstitutional.

 

Visit the agency and talk to people. If government employees say they can’t talk to you — that only the public information officer can speak to the press — challenge this policy as patently unconstitutional, as a reporter in Pennsylvania did.

MuckRock’s more than 150,000 requests submitted since 2010 can be searched for specific story topics and agencies.

Public record logs also can be requested directly from agencies or viewed online to see what others have acquired, as well as through MuckRock’s FOI Log Explorer.

Look, specifically, for records other journalists have requested. For example, from 2014 to 2023, Kevin Bogardus of E&E News had submitted 2,254 requests, according to the EPA’s online portal. Including state-level requests, he’s submitted more than 11,000.

Join Investigative Reporters and Editors to use its resource center, which includes more than 25,000 investigative stories submitted to their contest, 5,000 tip sheets, plus other resources. Each story is accompanied by an award entry form, which includes a description of what records were used to produce the story — providing thousands of suggestions for what records to get and how to do so.

ChatGPT also can help find the existence of specific records. And at the federal level, try the Department of Justice’s “FOIA Wizard,” which applies artificial intelligence to help find records of interest.

 

Master the law

Tips on using federal FOIA are provided at FOIA Wiki by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

At the state level, tap into RCFP’s Open Government Guide, which provides an explanation of the various elements of each state’s public records law. Use its “compare” function to get a list of how all states treat a particular part of the law, such as deadlines to respond or copy fees.

Collect other guides for your state public records law, such as those produced by a state FOI coalition and press association.

Even better, get guides produced from the government, such as the state attorney general or a state government association. Officials might be dismissive of guides produced by journalism organizations, but they will take seriously those written by their peers.

 

‘Perfect’ your request

Reporter at a FOIA workshop. Photo: International Journalism Festival via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Key to ordering up records is being specific. Make it easy for government clerks to find what you need and get it to you quickly and economically. The government calls that “perfecting” a request letter. In many states, agencies can legally ignore your request if deemed overly broad, unduly burdensome or vague.

A great tool for creating a letter at the state or local level is the Student Press Law Center letter generator. It’s been around since 1997 and has assisted hundreds of thousands of requesters. The template is easy to fill in and provides legal citations and reminders of penalties for agency noncompliance. Two experiments I ran indicate a request produced by the SPLC letter generator leads to a faster response, more records and lower copy fees than a friendly or neutral letter.

To craft an effective letter for federal agencies through FOIA, check out a template at FOIA Wiki or the National Freedom of Information Coalition. Find a previous request through MuckRock that was successful and “clone” it (the only time you are allowed to plagiarize as a journalist), and use its tip sheets, including one on acquiring environmental records.

At the federal level, request expedited review and a fee waiver, and keep the request narrow to be deemed a “simple” request to get in a shorter line, as opposed to “complex” requests.

 

Overcome denials

When denied, appeal. At the federal level, this is enshrined in law and all it takes is another email challenging the denial. This will put the request in the hands of the agency’s lawyers, who will require the records be released about a third of the time.

It doesn’t hurt to stop and think about why the agency might be denying the request. Using social exchange theory, motivate the custodian to reconsider by pointing out how releasing the records would benefit the agency or would decrease the costs they might incur, such as looking bad in a story you write, pointing out the secrecy.

Release is more likely if you talk with the custodian in person or on the phone – it builds trust. Read “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury to learn effective negotiation tactics.

 

Persuasion tactics

Sometimes we have to turn up the heat and apply psychological weapons of influence, as outlined by retired marketing researcher Robert Cialdini.

For example, humans like to be consistent, so get the agency to agree to small asks, then ratchet up. For example: “Can I see what a blank underground tank inspection form looks like? Great. Can I see one filled out? Awesome. Can I see what it looks like in your database? Thank you. Here’s a flash drive — can I have a copy of that data?”

Apply the “scarcity” tactic by saying (if it’s true) that your editor wants the story posted online in four hours and you would hate to write that the particular clerk denied the public the information contrary to law. Provide your business card and say they can change their mind, but they have only three hours to do so.

Studies indicate that peer pressure can work. Get the records from a neighboring, competitive jurisdiction, then come back and apply pressure to your target agency. “Shelbyville gave out the record. Why won’t you, Springfield? Why are you an outlier and deviant? Weird.”

 

While it’s always good to be friendly

and professional, don’t be worried

about using “authority,” which

usually wins out over affability.

 

While it’s always good to be friendly and professional, don’t be worried about using “authority,” which usually wins out over affability. Team up with other organizations (I call that a “watchdog pile”), use the legalistic SPLC request letter and implement hard tactics, such as writing about the denial, requesting emails about your request, submitting additional requests, going up the ladder, sending them a firm letter from an attorney or even suing.

 

Pay it forward

Become a champion for government transparency in your own newsroom and community. Participate in national Sunshine Week each March to educate the public about their right to know.

Push for legislative change in your state, such as getting stiff penalties in the law, mandatory attorney fee-shifting or an independent enforcement authority that can force agencies to cough up records without you going to court, similar to what exists in Ohio, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

Finally, exercise your public records muscles. Commit one hour a week for your FOI time, where you force yourself to submit one request and check up on your pending requests. (I had 8-9 a.m. Fridays – my “FOI Friday.”) If you stick with that commitment, you will execute 52 requests a year, and even if just half of those lead to amazing stories, you will have ramped up your reporting game three levels. It will also train your local agencies to respond to you, and help you get to know the clerks for when you need records quickly.

For more tactics and tips, check out the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, and contact us. We are happy to bat around ideas, provide further research-based strategies and national context, and offer bombastic quotes for your denial story.

What you do matters. As a journalist, you are serving as a proxy for the public to find out what the government is up to, which makes society better. For every dollar spent on public records journalism, society benefits $287 in saved lives, lower taxes and more efficient government. Public record laws improve drinking water quality, make for safer restaurants and reduce corruption.

It starts with you. Make the world — and your reporting — better through public records!

[Editor’s Note: Material for this story was drawn from a mini-workshop co-moderated by Cuillier at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference in Tempe, Arizona, in April 2025, whose sponsors are listed here. Listen to the mini-workshop’s full audio recording here (SEJ members only). For more on this topic, check SEJ’s FOI resource page, as well as SEJournal’s WatchDog opinion column.]

David Cuillier is director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and co-author of “The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records.” He was a newspaper reporter and editor in the Pacific Northwest before earning his doctorate from Washington State University in 2006. He taught journalism at the University of Arizona for 17 years before joining the Brechner FOI Project in 2023. He is former president of the Society of Professional Journalists and National Freedom of Information Coalition and a member of the National Archivist’s FOIA Advisory Committee. He can be reached at cuillierd@ufl.edu. 

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 31. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.