(a) TVA's FOIA Officer, or the FOIA Officer's designee, is responsible for responding to all FOIA requests. In determining which records are responsive to a request, TVA will ordinarily include only records in its possession as of the date it begins its search for them. If any other date is used, the FOIA Officer shall inform the requester of that date.
(b) Authority to grant or deny requests. TVA's FOIA Officer, or the FOIA Officer's designee, is authorized to grant or deny any request for a TVA record.
(c) Consultations and referrals. When the FOIA Officer receives a request for a record in TVA's possession, the FOIA Officer shall determine whether another agency of the Federal Government is better able to determine whether the record is exempt from disclosure under the FOIA and, if so, whether it should be disclosed as a matter of administrative discretion. If the FOIA Officer determines that TVA is not best able to process the record, the FOIA Officer shall either:
(1) Respond to the request regarding that record, after consulting with the agency best able to determine whether to disclose it and with any other agency that has a substantial interest in it; or
(2) Refer the responsibility for responding to the request regarding that record to the agency that originated the record (but only if that agency is subject to the FOIA). Ordinarily, the agency that originated a record will be presumed to be best able to determine whether to disclose it.
(d) Notice of referral. Whenever TVA refers all or any part of the responsibility for responding to a request to another agency, it ordinarily shall notify the requester of the referral and inform the requester of the name of each agency to which the request has been referred and of the part of the request that has been referred.
(e) Timing of responses to consultations and referrals. All consultations and referrals will be handled according to the date the FOIA request initially was received by the FOIA Officer, not any later date.
(f) Agreements regarding consultations and referrals. TVA may make agreements with other agencies to eliminate the need for consultations or referrals for particular types of records. [64 FR 4044, Jan. 27, 1999, as amended at 68 FR 4700, Jan. 30, 2003]