Nancy Beck correspondence (NIEHS)

Good Morning Mr. Rony,

Please contact us concerning your request.

Sincerely,
NIEHS FOIA Program
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Phone: (919) 541-3411

Good Afternoon Mr. Rony,

I have attached a copy of the acknowledgment letter for your FOIA Request (NIH FOI Case No. 46366). Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
NIEHS FOIA Program
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Phone: (919) 541-3411
Email: niehsfoia@niehs.nih.gov

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On April 21, 2017:
To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Correspondence (emails, letters, testimony, public comments, and meeting records) between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the American Chemistry Council's Nancy Beck, from January 1, 2012 to the date this request is processed.

I respectfully request that you waive all fees in connection with this request as provided by 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(iii). The Sierra Club is a national environmental nonprofit with no commercial interest in obtaining the request information. Instead, our organization intends to analyze and disseminate the requested information free of charge so that the public can be better informed and meaningfully participate in protecting public health.

The subject matter of the requested records is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government by disclosing the views held by an individual who has been reportedly named deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. In this capacity, Ms. Beck will deal with many of the same issues she discussed with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences over the past few years.

The Sierra Club and its supporters have demonstrated interest and expertise in the subject area, specifically the development of policies designed to safeguard public health from toxic hazards. Our supporters have filed hundreds of thousands of public comments to agencies related to these threats.

The Sierra Club also has the ability and intention to disseminate the information it receives through this request. The information may be shared through emails to an audience of hundreds of thousands of people, Facebook and Twitter posts reaching thousands of individuals, articles on our website, and analysis provided to the media. Here are three examples of my work:

https://sierraclub.org/planet/2017/04/hiring-freeze-prevented-epa-filling-hundreds-jobs
http://www.sierraclub.org/compass/2016/10/members-distance-themselves-alecs-climate-policies
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/4480/over-700000-people-tell-government-to-block-seed-mergers

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, please 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,

Alexander Rony
Sierra Club

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[http://email.requests.muckrock.com/o/eJwdzE0OwiAQQOHTyHIywDCUBSsbr2H405KGkhbr-W3cvcWXl70xLKpXKC2SYulIKQRlnTLgiKWE-TEz30nfCI-yn2V8BrQzrUdPK6TexOJziFEbbeIkDVKx2VGKFBgnZ4PFKC7WnjV7zazRicNvtSzj1Wu4rv-GrS7w7t8fLVQqYA]

Dear Mr. Rony –

Thank you for your message below inquiring about the status of your pending FOIA request with NIEHS dated April 21, 2017.

We regret the delay, but we are working through a backlog and are short-staffed. Currently, there are 16 FOIA requests ahead of yours. Although we are not able to provide a timeline for when you could expect to receive responsive records, we will contact you again if we have any questions about your request or when we have additional information for you or responsive public records are available to provide to you. In the meantime, if you are no longer interested in any portion of your request or would like to modify your request please let us know.

Thank you for your patience.

Best regards,
Regina

Regina Stabile, J.D.
FOIA Public Liaison and Privacy Act Coordinator
Office of Communications and Public Liaison<http://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/ocpl/index.cfm>
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institutes of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
919-541-3365

Good morning Mr. Rony –

We are trying to identify and gather responsive records for your request, NIH 46366, but have not yet located any records. We need more information from you. For reference, your request sought:
Correspondence (emails, letters, testimony, public comments, and meeting records) between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the American Chemistry Council's Nancy Beck, from January 1, 2012 to the date this request is processed.

Your request did not identify any National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) or National Toxicology Program (NTP) employees whose records we should search for responsive records. Please note in particular that we do not have a centralized email system that would allow us to search all email accounts, but rather must identify and search individual email accounts.

At your first opportunity, please identify specific NIEHS or NTP employees whose records we should search. The NIEHS and NTP organizational structure is available on-line at https://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/orgchart/ and the staff directory is available on-line at https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/staff/index.cfm.

Best regards,
Regina

Regina Stabile, J.D.
FOIA Public Liaison and Privacy Act Coordinator
Office of Communications and Public Liaison<http://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/ocpl/index.cfm>
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institutes of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
984-287-3324

Dear Mr. Rony: Please see the attached letter regarding your FOIA request (Case No. 46366).
Best,
Margaret Moore
NIAID FOIA Office

Good Morning Mr. Rony,

We are trying to identify and gather responsive records for your request, NIH 46366. We just want to confirm that you are seeking direct communications ("from" or "to") between Nancy Beck and any one of the following NIEHS personnel:

* Lori White,
* John Bucher,
* Linda Birnbaum,
* Mary Wolfe,
* Andrew Rooney,
* Kristina Thayer, and/or
* Mark Miller
During the time period of January 1, 2012 - May 1, 2017.

Additionally, can you provide further clarification of the subject matter(s) or topic(s) to help us identify records of interest to you?

Please let us know at your first opportunity, if the aforementioned search criteria is correct and if any further clarification if available. Thank you for your assistance with this request.

Best regards,

Angie Tew
Government Information Specialist
Office of Communications and Public Liaison<http://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/ocpl/index.cfm>
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institutes of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
984-287-3242

Good afternoon Mr. Rony,

We wanted to update you on your request.

We appreciate your patience and the modification of your request, as we are trying to identify responsive records according to your request. We are working off your last update where you narrowed the scope of your request to be in the time frame for 5 years from January 1, 2012 through May 1, 2017 and to also include any communication between any of the 7 government officials at NIEHS (Lori White, John Bucher, Linda Birnbaum, Mary Wolfe, Andrew Rooney, Kristina Thayer, and Mark Miller) and Ms. Nancy Beck. With that in mind, would you be willing to assistance us with modifying your request for specific search terms or something to identify specific records that you are interested in?

Very Respectfully,

Tony Livingston
Government Information Specialist
Office of Communications and Public Liaison<https://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/ocpl/index.cfm>
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institutes of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
984-287-3354

Thanks Mr. Rony,

For omitting the information. We appreciate it.

Very Respectfully,

Tony Livingston
984-287-3354

Good afternoon Mr. Rony,

We are still processing your request. As we continue to review the high volume of documents for your request. We wanted to know are you interested in the email trails that are not in the scope of your request? These emails would not include any of the 7 government officials from NIEHS/NTP. Please let us know if your willing to omit this information?

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Very Respectfully,

Tony Livingston

984-287-3354

Good afternoon Mr. Rony,

I discussed the modifications with my supervisor and we will be unable to take out the messages if they start togo in different directions. We are under no obligation to do that type of organization.

Our standard approach is that we de-dupe our records so that that any exact duplicates are removed and emails trails that are contained in subsequent email trails. We do this so that all the content that’s included in the later email trails allows us not to have to include all the prior copies.

If it’s an exact duplicate, we take it out entirely. So that you only get one copy and if its embedded duplicate we give you the most completed trial that includes all the prior messages and we get to exclude those prior messages that are contained in what you are receiving.

We will continue to process your request. Thank you again for your help.

Very Respectfully,

Tony Livingston

984-287-3354

Good morning Mr. Rony,

We are writing to provide you with the final records responsive to your request. However, the files are too large to send via regular email. So we are going to send the via secure file transfer. You will receive another email shortly with a link to access and download the records.

Very Respectfully,

Tony Livingston

Government Information Specialist

Office of Communications and Public Liaison<https://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/ocpl/index.cfm>

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

National Institutes of Health

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

984-287-3354

You have been sent a secure message/file(s). To access the secure message/file(s), click on the following link or copy and paste the link into the browser.

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