An aggressive affirmative disclosure regime is the first step towards alleviating the burden on FOIA, primarily the vast numbers of requesters not driven by public oversight purposes. This study demonstrates that affirmative disclosure has the potential to preclude the need for requesters – commercial requesters in particular – to file tens of thousands of requests a year. Indeed, some agencies have recognized this potential, experimented with innovative affirmative disclosure initiatives, and succeeded in reducing their volume of FOIA requests without limiting anyone’s access to the FOIA process one bit.