§ 602.266 - Categories of requesters—fees.

There are four categories of requesters: Commercial use requesters; educational and non-commercial scientific institutions; representatives of the news media; and all other requesters.

(a) The Farm Credit Administration shall charge fees for records requested by or on behalf of educational institutions and non-commercial scientific institutions in an amount which equals the cost of reproducing the documents responsive to the request, excluding the costs of reproducing the first 100 pages. For a request to be included in this category, requesters must show that the request being made is authorized by and under the auspices of a qualifying institution and that the records are not sought for a commercial use but are sought in furtherance of scholarly research (if the request is from an educational institution) or scientific research (if the request is from a non-commercial scientific institution).

(b) The Farm Credit Administration shall charge fees for records requested by representatives of the news media in an amount which equals the cost of reproducing the documents responsive to the request, excluding the costs of reproducing the first 100 pages. For a request to be included in this category, the requester must qualify as a representative of the news media and the request must not be made for a commercial use. A request for records supporting the news dissemination function of the requester shall not be considered to be a request that is for a commercial use.

(c) The Farm Credit Administration shall charge fees for records requested by persons or entities making a commercial use request in an amount that equals the full direct costs for searching for, reviewing for release, and reproducing the records sought. Commercial use requesters are not entitled to 2 hours of free search time nor 100 free pages of reproduction of documents. In accordance with § 602.271, commercial use requesters may be charged the costs of searching for and reviewing records even if there is ultimately no disclosure of records.

(d) The Farm Credit Administration shall charge fees for records requested by persons or entities that are not classified in any of the categories listed in paragraphs (a), (b) or (c) of this section in an amount that equals the full reasonable direct cost of searching for and reproducing records that are responsive to the request, excluding the first 2 hours of search time and the cost of reproducing the first 100 pages of records. In accordance with § 602.271 requesters in this category may be charged the cost of searching for records even if there is ultimately no disclosure of records, excluding the first 2 hours of search time.

(e) For purposes of the exceptions contained in this section on assessment of fees, the word pages refers to paper copies of “81/2 ×11” or “11 × 14.” Thus, requesters are not entitled to 100 microfiche or 100 computer disks, for example. A microfiche containing the equivalent of 100 pages or a computer disk containing the equivalent of 100 pages of computer printout meet the terms of the exception.

(f) For purposes of paragraph (d) of this section, the term search time has as its basis, manual search. To apply this term to searches made by computer, the Farm Credit Administration will determine the hourly cost of operating the central processing unit and the operator's hourly salary plus 16 percent. When the cost of search (including the operator time and the cost of operating the computer to process a request) equals the equivalent dollar amount of 2 hours of the salary of the person performing the search, i.e., the operator, the Farm Credit Administration will begin assessing charges for computer search.