§ 70.38 Definitions related to costs.

The following definitions apply to this subpart:

(a) Request, in this subpart, includes any request, as defined by § 70.2(f) of this part.

(b) Direct costs means those expenditures which a component actually incurs in searching for and duplicating (and in the case of commercial use requests, reviewing) records to respond to a FOIA request. Direct costs include, for example, the salary of the Federal employee performing work (the basic rate of pay for the Federal employee plus 16 percent of that rate to cover benefits) and the cost of operating duplication machinery. Not included in direct costs are overhead expenses such as costs of space, heating or lighting the facility in which the records are kept.

(c) Duplication means the process of making a copy of a record necessary to respond to a request. Such copy can take the form of paper, microform, audio-visual materials or electronic records (such as a CD or other media).

(d) Search means the process of looking for and retrieving records or information that are responsive to a FOIA request. It includes page-by-page or line-by-line identification of information within records and also includes reasonable efforts to locate and retrieve information from records maintained in electronic form or format. FOIA components will ensure that searches are done in the most efficient and least expensive manner reasonably possible. A search does not include the review of material, as defined in paragraph (e) of this section, which is performed to determine whether material is exempt from disclosure.