(a) Acknowledgment of requests. Upon receipt of a request, a component ordinarily shall send an acknowledgement letter to the requester which shall provide an assigned request number for further reference and, if necessary, confirm whether the requester is willing to pay fees.
(b) Interim responses. If a request involves voluminous records or requires searches in multiple locations, to the extent feasible, a component shall provide the requester with interim responses consisting of fully releasable records.
(c) Grants of requests. If a component makes a determination to grant a request in whole or in part, it shall notify the requester in writing of such determination and disclose records to the requester promptly upon payment of any applicable fees. Records disclosed in part shall be marked or annotated to show the applicable FOIA exemption(s) and the amount of information deleted, unless doing so would harm an interest protected by an applicable exemption. The location of the information deleted shall also be indicated on the record, if feasible.
(d) Adverse determinations of requests. If a component makes an adverse determination regarding a request, it shall notify the requester of that determination in writing. An adverse determination is a denial of a request and includes decisions that: The requested record is exempt, in whole or in part; the request does not reasonably describe the records sought; the information requested is not a record subject to the FOIA; the requested record does not exist, cannot be located, or has previously been destroyed; or the requested record is not readily reproducible in the form or format sought by the requester. Adverse determinations also include denials involving fees or fee waiver matters or denials of requests for expedited processing.
(e) Content of denial. The denial letter shall be signed by an official listed in Appendix B to this part (or a designee), and shall include:
(1) The name and title or position of the person responsible for the denial;
(2) A brief statement of the reason(s) for the denial, including any FOIA exemption(s) applied by the component in denying the request;
(3) An estimate of the volume of any records or information withheld, by providing the number of pages or some other reasonable form of estimation. This estimate is not required if the volume is otherwise indicated by deletions marked on records that are disclosed in part, or if providing an estimate would harm an interest protected by an applicable FOIA exemption; and
(4) A statement that the denial may be appealed under Sec. 4.10, and a list of the requirements for filing an appeal set forth in Sec. 4.10(b). [79 FR 62560, Oct. 20, 2014]