The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (“EEA”) encourages you to use the electronic form below to make a public records request (“PRR”) to EEA. This helps to ensure the most expeditious and accurate response to your request. Otherwise, written requests may be delivered by hand, mail, email, or fax (if available). While requests for public records may be made orally in person to an RAO, such requests may not be the subject of an appeal. Telephone requests may be accepted at the discretion of the RAO.
Things to consider before submitting your request
To ensure EEA’s response to your request is as fast and complete as possible, please consider the following questions before you submit:
- Is your request narrowly targeted? Consider how you can narrow the scope of your request to expedite the production process to target the records you are most interested in. Under the Public Records Act, EEA will perform the first four hours of work to necessary to respond your request at no cost. After that, EEA may charge up to $25 per hour.
- Does your request call for confidential information? Public agencies like EEA must adhere to the law requiring them to secure personally identifiable information and prevent unwarranted invasions of privacy. Additionally, public agencies like EEA may withhold confidential communications containing legal advice from agency counsel to agency personnel to preserve the attorney-client privilege. EEA must carefully redact documents containing such information before releasing them to you, expanding the time needed to respond to your request. Consider how you might revise your request to exclude records containing such information.
- Is EEA the right agency to receive your request? EEA contains a number of departments and agencies—including the Department of Agricultural Resources (“MDAR”), Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”), Department of Conservation and Recreation (“DCR”), Department of Fish and Game (“DFG”), Department of Energy Resources (“DOER”), and Department of Public Utilities (“DPU”), and the Coastal Zone Management Office (“CZM”). These agencies handle requests for their public records themselves. To help avoid delay in responses, please consider whether your public record request would more appropriately be directed to one of those agencies. Click here for links to each of their public records request portals.
- Likewise, other state government secretariats and agencies, cities, towns, and other state government bodies handle their own public records requests—please refer to their websites for information about how to make requests of them.
For additional information regarding the Public Records Act and the process for requesting and receiving public records, please see the Secretary of State’s Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law.