The Freedom of Information Act exemption 7(C), which protects against unwarranted invasion of “personal privacy,” does not extend to corporations, the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously March 1, reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (FCC v. AT&T Inc., U.S., No. 09-1279, 3/1/11).

The Supreme Court rejected AT&T’s argument that because FOIA’s definition of “person” includes corporations, the adjectival form of that word must include them as well.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that “two words together may assume a more particular meaning than those words in isolation.” The term “personal,” when conjoined with “privacy,” “suggests a type of privacy evocative of human concerns—not the sort usually associated with an entity like, say, AT&T,” he said. The corporation “has given us no sound reason in the statutory text or context to disregard the ordinary meaning of the phrase ‘personal privacy,’ ” Roberts said.

“Corporations need not be overly concerned that this decision will open their confidential information to FOIA requests, as today’s decision does not alter other exemptions available to corporations under the FOIA, ” Jaime Bianchi, a litigation partner at White & Case, in Miami, said in a March 1 statement…

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Legislation that would set a goal of ending overseas oil imports within 20 years by increasing production and use of electric vehicles, developing alternative transportation fuels, reducing the use of heating oil, and other means was introduced in…

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Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has scheduled a July 15 markup in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs, on as many as nine bills promoting electric vehicles, modular nuclear reactors, natural gas turbines, solar incentives, and…

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