(a) Each Food and Drug Administration component is responsible for determining whether to use a multitrack system to process requests for records maintained by that component. A multitrack system provides two or more tracks for processing requests, based on the amount of work and/or time required for a request to be processed. The availability of multitrack processing does not affect expedited processing in accordance with §20.44.

(b) If multitrack processing is not adopted by a particular agency component, that component will process all requests in a single track, ordinarily on a first-in, first-out basis.

(c) If a multitrack processing system is established by a particular agency component, that component may determine how many tracks to establish and the specific criteria for assigning requests to each track. Multiple tracks may be established for requests based on the amount of work and/or time required for a request to be processed.

(d) Requests assigned to a given track will ordinarily be processed on a first-in, first-out basis within that track.

(e) If a request does not qualify for the fastest processing track, the requester may be provided an opportunity to limit the scope of the request in order to qualify for faster processing.

[68 FR 25286, May 12, 2003]