Department of Energy electric grid study meeting schedule, minutes
Tracking # |
HQ-2017-01082-F |
Submitted | May 12, 2017 |
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Communications
From: Josh Israel
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:
I am requesting the meeting schedule of Mr. Travis Fisher, a Department of Energy employee who was chosen to lead an electric power grid study ("STUDY EXAMINING ELECTRICITY MARKETS AND RELIABILITY') between the dates of April 1, 2017, and May 12, 2017, and the minutes of meetings attended by Travis Fisher between the dates of April 1, 2017, and May 12, 2017. Travis Fisher was chosen to lead the electric power grid study ordered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry in an April 14, 2017 memo that Secretary Perry sent to his chief of staff, Mr. Brian McCormack.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
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 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
1333 H Street NW
10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
202-481-8127
mhand@americanprogress.org
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 3:06 PM
To: 'mhand@thinkprogress.com' <mhand@thinkprogress.com>
Cc: Sullivan, Elizabeth (CONTR) <Elizabeth.Sullivan@Hq.Doe.Gov>; Bowman, Angelia (CONTR) <Angelia.Bowman@Hq.Doe.Gov>
Subject: FOIA Request HQ-2017-01082-F
Dear Mr. Hand,
Attached please find an interim response to your FOIA Request HQ-2017-01082-F. Please feel free to email or call me with any questions.
JoAnna Gorsage, Esq.
Central Research, Contractor to the
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20585
202-586-2708
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 12, 2017. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed. You had assigned it reference number #HQ-2017-01082-F.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Dear Mr. Hand,
We are processing your request and hope to have a response to you within the next two weeks.
Thank you and please feel free to call or email me with any questions,
JoAnna Gorsage
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~WRD000
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Dear Mr. Hand,
I left a message for you on June 30th, 2017 asking to speak with you regarding your request. Would you please call me or let me know a good time to call you to discuss your request? I would appreciate it.
JoAnna Gorsage
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image001
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Dear Mr. Hand,
Thank you so much for speaking with me this morning. As we discussed, you have agreed to amend your request to allow us to remove from the documents, any non-responsive discussions with outside agencies on topics unrelated to the "STUDY EXAMINING ELECTRICITY MARKETS AND RELIABILITY". This should enable us to respond sooner to your request.
Please respond with an email confirming that this is an accurate description of our conversation at your earliest convenience.
Thank you again,
JoAnna
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image001
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
Thank you for your email. Yes, we agreed on today's phone call to amend my request to allow DOE to remove any non-responsive discussions with outside agencies on topics unrelated to the "Study Examining Electricity Markets and Reliability."
Thanks again for your help on this request.
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
202-481-8127
mhand@americanprogress.org
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
I am writing to inquire about the status of my Freedom of Information Act request regarding the meeting schedule of Mr. Travis Fisher, a Department of Energy employee who was chosen to lead an electric power grid study ("STUDY EXAMINING ELECTRICITY MARKETS AND RELIABILITY') between the dates of April 1, 2017, and May 12, 2017, and the minutes of meetings attended by Travis Fisher between the dates of April 1, 2017, and May 12, 2017.
When we spoke on the phone almost two weeks ago, you said that you would likely be able to get the documents to me within two weeks.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks again for your help.
Sincerely,
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
Washington, DC
202-481-8127
mhand@americanprogress.org
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Dear Mr. Hand,
Thank you so much for speaking with me this morning. As we discussed, you have filed a new request - HQ-2017-01447-F - which asks for:
Meeting schedule of Mr. Travis Fisher, a Department of Energy employee who was chosen to lead an electric power grid study ("STUDY EXAMINING ELECTRICITY MARKETS AND RELIABILITY") between the dates of May 13, 2017, and July 17, 2017, and the minutes of meetings attended by Travis Fisher between the dates of May 13, 2017 and July 17, 2017.
As your request HQ-2017-01447-F is the same as your current request HQ-2017-01082-F (it just extends the date range), you have agreed to close request HQ-2017-01447-F and amend request HQ-2017-01082-F to extend the date range in that request from April 1, 2017 and May 12, 2017 to April 1, 2017 and July 17, 2017.
This will not cause any delay in our response to your request HQ-2017-01082-F. We will produce responsive documents as they are processed.
You also agreed to apply your previous amendment to exclude non-responsive discussions with outside agencies on topics unrelated to the "STUDY EXAMINING ELECTRICITY MARKETS AND RELIABILITY" to this date range.
If this is an accurate reflection of our discussion, please respond to this email with your agreement at your earliest convenience.
Thank you so much,
JoAnna Gorsage
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Hi Mr. Hand,
Just following up on the below. Would you send an email confirming that the below accurately reflects our conversation? I will then close HQ-2017-01447-F and instruct the program office to extend the search for HQ-2017-01082-F to include the later dates of May 13, 2017 to July 17, 2017.
Thank you for your time,
JoAnna Gorsage
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. Yes, we agreed last week to amend my request so that it conforms to my previous FOIA request in terms of agreeing to exclude any non-responsive discussions with outside agencies on topics unrelated to the "Study Examining Electricity Markets and Reliability."
Also, we agreed to extend the date range to July 17.
Thanks again for your help on this request.
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
202-481-8127
mhand@americanprogress.org
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Thank you so much for the reply! I will close HQ-2017-01447-F and send the search request for the extended date range of July 17 in request HQ-2017-01082-F discussed below. Thank you again.
JoAnna
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
Will you be able to get me the information on the electric grid study I originally requested for the dates of April 1, 2017, through May 12, 2017, in the next few days prior to gathering the information for the subsequent time period May 13-July 17), as you stated you would try to do (HQ-2017-01082-F)?
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mark
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Hi Mr. Hand,
I have submitted the documents for the original date range April 1, 2017 through May 12, 2017 for review. I am hoping I can get it to you next week. I just received the documents for the second date range of May 13, 2017 through July 17, 2017 and have begun processing them. I will probably be able to get that out to you in a few weeks.
Let me know if you have any questions,
JoAnna
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
I am following up on our previous correspondence to find out if you will be able to provide me with the first batch of information I requested related to the meeting schedule and meeting minutes of Travis Fisher, who is overseeing the Department of Energy's electric grid study.
I was hoping to receive that information last week, as you suggested in your prior note.
Please let me know the status of my request and whether you will be able to provide with at least the information I originally requested in mid-May.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
Phone: 202-481-8127
Email: mhand@americanprogress.org
Twitter: @MarkFHand
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Dear Mr. Hand,
I apologize for the delay - we are still working on the response and I'm hoping that it will go out within the next week or two. I will keep you updated if that time line changes at all.
JoAnna Gorsage
From: Gorsage, Joanna (CONTR)
Dear Mr. Hand,
Thank you for speaking with me this afternoon. As we discussed, we are still working on the First Partial Response to your request which will cover Mr. Fisher's schedule from April 1, 2017 through May 12, 2017.
In the meantime, please find attached documents that were released in response to another request. That request was for Mr. Fisher's emails regarding the "Study Examining Electricity Markets and Reliability" with outside domains epa.gov, ferc.gov, coalsource.com, ierdc.org, eei.org, nerc.net, or pjm.com. As I mentioned, as these documents were released in response to another request, you do not have appeal rights to any of the redactions in these previously released docs. You will of course, have appeal rights to the documents we release in response to your request HQ-2017-01082-F.
Finally, you agreed to waive attachments to the calendar entries for the Second Partial Response ONLY which will cover Mr. Fisher's schedule from May 13, 2017 through July 31, 2017. The calendar entries will still contain the titles of all of the attachments and you are welcome to submit another FOIA request for any of the attachments reflected in the calendar that are of interest to you. This will enable us to process the Second Partial Response much faster.
If this is an accurate reflection of our discussion and your agreement regarding the Second Partial Response, will you please respond to this email with your agreement at your earliest convenience?
Please also feel free to call or email me with any questions.
Thank you,
JoAnna
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
Thank you for sending the emails that were released as part of a separate request.
Yes, your description of what we agreed to yesterday regarding the second batch of documents that I requested pertaining to the grid study meeting minutes and schedule is accurate.
I look forward to receiving those documents.
Thanks for all your help.
Sincerely,
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
202-481-8127
mhand@americanprogress.org
From: Josh Israel
Dear JoAnna,
I am writing to check on the status of the FOIA request I submitted to DOE in May. After speaking with you, the request was broken into two groups. When we last communicated, you were hoping to get me the first batch of documents within a couple weeks.
I would like to know about the status of that part of the FOIA request -- the meeting schedule of Mr. Travis Fisher, a Department of Energy employee who was chosen to lead an electric power grid study ("STUDY EXAMINING ELECTRICITY MARKETS AND RELIABILITY') between the dates of April 1, 2017, and May 12, 2017, and the minutes of meetings attended by Travis Fisher between the dates of April 1, 2017, and May 12, 2017.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
202-481-8127
mhand@americanprogress.org
From:
Dear Mr. Hand,
I just wanted to update you on the status of your request. We sent out the first partial response to your request on September 30, 2017. We are still processing the second and final partial response to your request but hope to have that out to you within the next two weeks. Please feel free to call or email me with any questions.
JoAnna Gorsage
From:
Hi Joanna,
Thank you for your note. Yes, I received the partial response to my request on a CD a couple weeks ago. I was able to access the documents on the CD. Thanks for sending them.
I look forward to receiving the second part of my request.
Thanks for your help and for keeping me updated throughout this process.
Mark
Mark Hand
Reporter
ThinkProgress
Phone: 202-481-8127
Email: mhand@americanprogress.org<mailto:mhand@americanprogress.org>
Twitter: @MarkFHand
From:
Good Afternoon Mr. Hand,
Please see the attached Final response and documents for the above referenced FOIA request. This will serve as the final response from DOE Headquarters. Let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Kyle Kemper, Esq.
FOIA Analyst
Central Research, Inc. Contractor
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20585
(202) 586-2708
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