The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC or the Commission) is an independent adjudicatory agency that provides hearings and appellate review of cases arising under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (the Mine Act). Hearings are held before the Commission’s Administrative Law Judges, and appellate review is provided by a five-member Review Commission appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

In accordance with the amendments made by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Public Law 114-185, 130 Stat. 538, the Commission is proposing to revise its rules to issue regulations on procedures for the disclosure of records under the FOIA, including procedures for engaging in dispute resolution through the FOIA Public Liaison and the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) and the requirement that requesters be given a minimum of 90 days to file an administrative FOIA appeal. Additionally, the revisions would include clarification on the types of information that a requester must provide in order to facilitate a FOIA search of the agency’s records, additional circumstances under which expedited processing will be granted, procedures for processing requests for confidential and/or commercial records, the agency’s practice regarding the preservation of FOIA records, and increases in certain fees. Based on its years of experience in implementing the FOIA, the Commission is proposing to implement some of the above-changes in its FOIA rules to better reflect agency practice under the rules. Finally, while the proposed rules retain much of the substantive practices and procedures currently in effect, they have been extensively reorganized under new section headers and paragraph headers.