(a) Fees otherwise chargeable in connection with a request for disclosure of a record shall be waived or reduced where the requester seeks a waiver or reduction of fees and the Department determines, in its discretion, that disclosure is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.

(1) In deciding whether disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of operations or activities of the government, the Department shall consider all four of the following factors:

(i) The subject of the request must concern identifiable operations or activities of the Federal Government, with a connection that is direct and clear, not remote or attenuated.

(ii) Disclosure of the requested records must be meaningfully informative about government operations or activities in order to be “likely to contribute” to an increased public understanding of those operations or activities. The disclosure of information that already is in the public domain, in either the same or a substantially identical form, would not contribute to such understanding where nothing new would be added to the public's understanding.

(iii) The disclosure must contribute to the understanding of a reasonably broad audience of persons interested in the subject, as opposed to the individual understanding of the requester. A requester's expertise in the subject area as well as the requester's ability and intention to effectively convey information to the public shall be considered. It shall be presumed that a representative of the news media will satisfy this consideration.

(iv) The public's understanding of the subject in question must be enhanced by the disclosure to a significant extent.

(2) In order to determine whether disclosure of the information is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester, the Department will consider the following factors:

(i) The existence and magnitude of a commercial interest, i.e., whether the requester has a commercial interest that would be furthered by the requested disclosure; and, if so,

(ii) The primary interest in disclosure, i.e., whether disclosure is primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.

(iii) Requests for purposes of writing a book, an article, or other publication will not be considered a commercial purpose.

(b) The Department may refuse to consider waiver or reduction of fees for requesters from whom unpaid fees remain owed to the Department for another FOIA request.

(c) Where only some of the records to be released satisfy the requirements for a waiver or reduction of fees, a waiver or reduction shall be granted for only those records.

(d) Requests for a waiver or reduction of fees should be made when the request is first submitted to the Department and should address the criteria referenced above. A requester may submit a fee waiver request at a later time so long as the underlying record request is pending or on administrative appeal. When a requester who has committed to pay fees subsequently asks for a waiver of those fees and that waiver is denied, the requester shall be required to pay any costs incurred up to the date the fee waiver request was received.

(e) The Division Chief of the Requester Liaison Division in IPS will issue all initial decisions on whether to grant or deny requests for a fee waiver. A decision to refuse to waive or reduce fees may be appealed to the Director of IPS within 30 calendar days of the date of the Department's refusal letter. See §171.4 for address information. A decision in writing on the appeal shall be issued within 20 working days of the receipt of the appeal.