Opinion
Opinion By: Andy Beshear,Attorney General;James M. Herrick,Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter having been presented to the Attorney General in an open records appeal, and the Attorney General being sufficiently advised, we find that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is not a public agency for open records purposes and therefore cannot be said to have violated the Open Records Act in the disposition of Jason Stanford's December 19, 2017, request for records relating to several locations and entities within Kentucky. As a basis for this decision, we adopt 06-ORD-108 (copy attached), in which we held that the Army Corps of Engineers, as a federal agency, was not subject to the Kentucky Open Records Act under KRS 61.870(1)(h). As we observed in 96-ORD-118, records in the custody or control of federal agencies are governed by the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Accordingly, this appeal is not within the jurisdiction of this office under KRS 61.880.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General shall be notified of any action in circuit court, but shall not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.