As used in this part:

(a) Commission means the Federal Election Commission, established by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended.

(b) Commissioner means an individual appointed to the Federal Election Commission pursuant to 52 U.S.C. 30106(a).

(c) Request means to seek the release of records under 5 U.S.C. 552.

(d) Requestor is any person who submits a request to the Commission.

(e) Act means the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended by the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, 1976, and 1979, and unless specifically excluded, includes chapters 95 and 96 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 relating to public financing of Federal elections.

(f) Public Disclosure and Media Relations Division of the Commission is that division which is responsible for, among other things, the processing of requests for public access to records which are submitted to the Commission pursuant to 52 U.S.C. 30108(d), 30109(a)(4)(B)(ii), and 30111(a).

(g) Direct costs means those expenditures which the Commission actually incurs in searching for and duplicating (and, in the case of commercial use requestors, reviewing) documents to respond to a FOIA request. Direct costs include the salary of the employee performing the work (the basic rate of pay for the employee plus 16 percent of that rate to cover benefits) and the cost of operating duplicating equipment. Direct costs do not include overhead expenses such as the cost of space and heating or lighting the facility in which the records are stored.

(h) Search means all time spent reviewing, manually or by automated means, Commission records for the purpose of locating those records that are responsive to a FOIA request, including page-by-page or line-by-line identification of material within documents. Search time does not include review of material in order to determine whether the material is exempt from disclosure.

(i) Review means the process of examining a document located in response to a commercial use request to determine whether any portion of the document located is exempt from disclosure. Review also refers to processing any document for disclosure, i.e., doing all that is necessary to excise exempt portions of the document and otherwise prepare the document for release. Review does not include time spent by the Commission resolving general legal or policy issues regarding the application of exemptions.

(j) Duplication means the process of making a copy of a document necessary to respond to a FOIA request. Examples of the form such copies can take include, but are not limited to, paper copy, microform, audio-visual materials, or machine readable documentation (e.g., magnetic tape or disk).

(k) Commercial use means a purpose that furthers the commercial, trade, or profit interests of the requestor or the person on whose behalf the request is made. The Commission's determination as to whether documents are being requested for a commercial use will be based on the purpose for which the documents are being requested. Where the Commission has reasonable cause to doubt the use for which the requestor claims to have made the request or where that use is not clear from the request itself, the Commission will seek additional clarification before assigning the request to a specific category.

(l) Educational institution means a preschool, a public or private elementary or secondary school, an institution of graduate higher education, an institution of undergraduate higher education, an institution of professional education, and an institution of vocational education, which operates a program or programs of scholarly research.

(m) Non-commercial scientific institution means an organization that is not operated on a commercial basis, as that term is defined in paragraph (k) of this section, and which is operated solely for the purpose of conducting scientific research the results of which are not intended to promote any particular product or industry.

(n) Representative of the news media means a person actively gathering news for an entity that is organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. The term news means information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public. Examples of news media entities include, but are not limited to, television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large, and publishers of periodicals (but only in those instances when they can qualify as disseminators of news, as defined in this paragraph) who make their products available for purchase or subscription by the general public. A freelance journalist may be regarded as working for a news organization and therefore considered a representative of the news media if that person can demonstrate a solid basis for expecting publication by that news organization, even though that person is not actually employed by that organization. The best means by which a freelance journalist can demonstrate a solid basis for expecting publication by a news organization is by having a publication contract with that news organization. When no such contract is present, the Commission will look to the freelance journalist's past publication record in making this determination.

(o) Record and any other term used in this part in reference to information includes any information that would be a Commission record subject to the requirements of this part when maintained by the Commission in any format, including an electronic format.

[44 FR 33368, June 8, 1979, as amended at 45 FR 31291, May 13, 1980; 52 FR 39212, Oct. 21, 1987; 65 FR 9206, Feb. 24, 2000; 79 FR 77844, Dec. 29, 2014; 81 FR 92439, Dec. 23, 2016]