Montrose Chemical Corporation of California v. Train

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted hearings under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act about the insecticide DDT and registrations to use DDT. The hearings produced over 9,000 pages of records. The hearing examiner determined that all DDT registrations had complied with the law. Rather than letting an appeal from the hearing examiner go to a judicial officer, the EPA administrator (defendant) withdrew the case for review by himself and three additional EPA officials. To assist with his review, the EPA administrator asked the three additional EPA officials to review the public record and create summaries of the facts introduced at the hearings. The officials created two documents summarizing the facts. The EPA administrator reversed the hearing officer, releasing a 50-page opinion holding that certain DDT registrations were unlawful and ordering their cancellation. Montrose Chemical Corporation of California (Montrose) (plaintiff) filed a lawsuit in federal district court against the EPA administrator under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking disclosure of the two documents created by the EPA officials. FOIA required the government to make its records public upon request. The EPA argued that the documents were exempt from FOIA under the deliberative-process exemption codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5) because the documents were created as part of the agency’s internal deliberations. The district court ordered the EPA to disclose the documents. The EPA appealed.