Colorado Oil/Gas -- Kevin Grantham
| Submitted | May 2, 2017 |
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Communications
From: David Sirota
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
- Specific emails to or from specific legislators to or from the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. This includes emails to or from email addresses at the domain name "@coga.org." The specific emails being requested are those from the dates 12/1/16 to the present.
- Specific emails to or from specific legislators to or from employees or lobbyists from Anadarko Petroleum. This includes emails to or from email addresses at the domain name "@anadarko.com." The specific emails being requested are those from the dates 12/1/16 to the present.
- Specific emails to or from specific legislators that include any of the following keywords: "setback," "set back," "fracking," "HB 1256," "1256," "HB17-1256," "forced pooling," "HB 1336," "1336," or "HB17-1336." The specific emails being requested are those from the dates 12/1/16 to the present.
The specific legislator this request covers is: Kevin Grantham.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. I am requesting a waiver of all fees under 5 U.S.C. Section 552(a)(4)(A)(iii). The information I seek is in the public interest because it will contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in my commercial interest. This request is not a commercial request -- it is being made by an award-winning media organization and is seeking documents of clear public interest and concern.
I believe I meet the criteria for a fee waiver recognized by the U.S. Justice Department - and by the federal courts, See Project on Military Procurement v. Department of the Navy, 710 F. Supp. 362 363, 365 (D.C.D. 1989).
My request concerns the operations or activities of government because the records relate to the enforcement of antitrust law at a time when there is significant public debate about consolidation, market power, and regulations. The records that are responsive to this request will spotlight the way the government shapes policy and will also show the ways that policy is shaped by corporate representatives seeking to influence public policy.
Also, the information sought has informative value, or potential for contribution to public understanding. Please note the decision in Elizabeth Eudey v. Central Intelligence Agency, 478 F. Supp. 1175 1176 (D.C.D. 1979) (even a single document has the potential for contributing to public understanding). As the senior editor for investigations at Newsweek/IBT, I plan to disseminate this information to the public at large through publication in Newsweek and at International Business Times. Those award-winning publications get millions of visitors per month.
In addition, the release of this information will have a significant impact on public understanding because it will illustrate how antitrust enforcement decisions are influenced and made by public officials. The policy matters this request covers millions of people in their daily lives, and these documents will show how those matters are perceived by public officials and influenced by outside interests.
In your deliberations, please take note of the following cases: Campbell v. U.S. Department of Justice, 334 U.S. App. D.C. (1998)(administrative and seemingly repetitious information is not exempt from fee-waiver consideration); Project on Military Procurement (agencies cannot reject a fee waiver based on the assumption that the information sought is covered by a FOIA exemption; and Landmark Legal Foundation v. Internal Revenue Service, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21722 (D.C.D. 1998)(the fact that the information will soon be turned over to a public body does not exempt the material from fee-waiver consideration).
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
David Sirota
IBT/Newsweek
(646) 867-7100
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 2, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Matthew Dawkins
Mr. Sirota,
We are in the process of reviewing the records compiled by Senate
President Grantham in connection with your recent open records request
(revised request #2). Rather than wait for the review of all the
documents to be completed, I'm providing you now with the first eight sets
of documents that we have reviewed and determined to be public records
within the scope of your request. Given the large volume of records at
issue and the corresponding large file size, rather than send them
electronically as a series of individual emails and attachments, I have
made them available via Dropbox. You can access the records using the
following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m84nj6ndbeyljot/AACOjmcGLf9nRvMizZzIu7xVa?dl=0
If accessing the documents through Dropbox is problematic for you, please
let me know and I can send these sets of documents individually as email
attachments.
We will send additional public records from Sen. Grantham in the near
future as we complete the review of more sets of his documents.
If it is helpful, here is a status report on the remaining CORA requests
to the Senate members.
Sen. Marble: We are nearing completion of the review of the documents
Senator Marble located. I anticipate sending to you the public records
for that request by the end of this week.
Sen. Cooke: We have begun the review of the Senator Cooke's documents.
I'm hopeful that we will also be able to complete that work within the
next few days as well.
Each of the four legislators (Sen. Holbert, Sen. Grantham, Sen. Marble,
and Sen. Cooke) spent less time than was originally estimated for
retrieving the records that were possibly within the scope of your request
to them. Accordingly, the applicable portions of the administrative
research and retrieval fees paid will be refunded to the MuckRock
foundation. The attached document provides a breakdown of the actual time
spent and the corresponding refund due. A few moments ago, I submitted to
our accounting department a request to process a check in the amount of
that refund. I will also deliver to the accountants for deposit the two
checks sent by the MuckRock Foundation as the payment of the
administrative search and retrieval fee deposits totalling $2,025.60. I
delayed depositing those funds until I knew the final amount of any refund
owed. When I have received the refund check from the accountants and am
placing it in the outgoing mail, I will notify you accordingly so have a
general sense of when it will arrive at the MuckRock Foundation.
Regards,
Matt Dawkins
Office Manager
Office of Legislative Legal Services
Colorado General Assembly
(303) 866-2045
From: Matthew Dawkins
Mr. Sirota,
In connection with your CORA request, Senator Cooke's office has
identified a large volume of records that consist of emails that contain
(as attachments) materials for various meetings of the Joint Budget
Committee. The documents were identified as responsive to your request as
a result of them containing one or more reference to the terms "1256" or
"1336". However, in my preliminary review of the documents, I've
determined the references are to bills from prior years that were assigned
that same bill number (HB 10-1336, HB 03-1256, HB 16-1256). It appears
from my initial review there are fewer than 2 dozen references to those
bill numbers in what I'm estimating to be several thousand pages of
documents. Are you interested in receiving this large volume of documents
that are JBC meeting materials that reference bills from prior years? If
you'd like the documents, I can send the information to you. However,
given the large page count and associated file size, I first wanted to
contact you with a general description of the nature of the documents and
inquire whether that type of documents were of interest to you. Please
let me know if you'd like to receive these JBC meeting documents.
For illustration, I've attached a sample of one such email and one
of the three attachments (the hearing schedule) to that email message. The
other two documents attached to the email are reports that are available
to the public on the General Assembly's website. Here are the details:
CORA request term “1336”
Document: FY 2017-18 Public Safety (All Divisions except the Division of
Criminal Justice) Figure Setting
References found to House Bill 10-1336 (p. 21)
Full document accessible at
http://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/fy2017-18_pubsaffig1.pdf
CORA request term “1256”
Document: FY 2017-18 Higher Education Figure Setting document; references
found to H.B. 03-1256 (pp. 5, 79, 97, 98)
Full document accessible at
http://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/fy2017-18_hedfig_1.pdf
Matt Dawkins
Office Manager
Office of Legislative Legal Services
Colorado General Assembly
(303) 866-2045
From: David Sirota
No, I don't need the thousands of pages from previous years.
From: Matthew Dawkins
Mr. Sirota,
We completed the review of the records compiled by Senate President
Grantham in connection with your recent open records request (revised
request #2). Previously I sent you (via Dropbox) the first 8 sets of
documents. There are 7 additional sets of documents (Grantham 9.pdf -
Grantham 15.pdf). You can access all 15 sets of records using the
following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m84nj6ndbeyljot/AACOjmcGLf9nRvMizZzIu7xVa?dl=0
If accessing the documents through Dropbox is problematic for you, please
let me know and I can send these sets of documents individually as email
attachments.
Also, the $145.50 refund check was placed in yesterday's outgoing mail. It
should be arriving at the MuckRock Foundation in the near future.
Regards,
Matt Dawkins
Office Manager
Office of Legislative Legal Services
Colorado General Assembly
(303) 866-2045
From: Michael Morisy
Re-upload of documents originally provided via Dropbox.
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