Luis Miguel Hurtado Coronado
ARIA
Formentera, 15, Reus. 43205.

27 October 2025

Dear Access to Documents Team,

Pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006, I request access to the following documents held by the EEAS:

1.- EU Methane Regulation discussions with U.S. Department of Energy (DOE):
- All records exchanged between the EU Delegation to the United States (Washington, DC) and representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy in which the EU Methane Regulation was discussed, dated between 1 November 2024 and 31 October 2025.
- The Scope includes, without limitation: emails (including attachments), letters, meeting requests, agendas, participant lists, briefings, talking points, slide decks, readouts, minutes/notes, teleconference summaries, instant messages (Teams/Signal/WhatsApp if used for official business), and any subsequent follow-ups or action trackers.

2.- LNG Allies “Embassy Working Group”
- All correspondence, notes, materials, or other content exchanged with LNG Allies (also known as U.S. LNG Association, if applicable) concerning the “Embassy Working Group,” dated between 1 April 2025 and 31 October 2025.
- Scope includes: invitations, agendas, membership/participant lists, TORs/charter documents, decks or briefing packets, talking points, event summaries, minutes/notes, readouts, and email or messaging exchanges (plus attachments).

Custodians and locations to search (non-exhaustive):
• EU Delegation to the United States (Washington, DC): Ambassador’s office; Political & Economic sections; Energy/Climate focal points; Trade/Regulatory staff; Document management and shared mailboxes used for external engagement.
• EEAS HQ: Americas; Global & Multilateral Issues (energy, climate); any task forces or cells covering U.S. energy diplomacy or methane.
• Any EEAS shared drives, records management systems, and meeting-scheduling tools used for U.S. stakeholder engagement.

Suggested keywords (apply Boolean variants and proximity where supported)
“methane regulation” OR “EU Methane Regulation” OR "EUMR" OR “CH4” OR “MRV” OR “methane intensity” OR “fugitive emissions” OR “venting and flaring” AND (“U.S. Department of Energy” OR “DOE” OR “Office of International Affairs”)
“LNG Allies” OR “USLNG Association” OR "Fred H. Hutchison" AND “Embassy Working Group” OR “EWG"
Also combine with: “meeting,” “briefing,” “deck,” “readout,” “minutes,” “talking points,” “non-paper,” “stakeholder,” “industry,” “Washington,” “DC.”

Format and delivery
• Please provide all records electronically in machine-readable formats where available (PDF, .msg/.eml or MBOX for emails, native files for spreadsheets and presentations).
• Preserve metadata to the extent feasible.
• If any records are held only in hard copy, kindly scan at a readable resolution.

Transparency standards and redactions
• If portions of documents are covered by Article 4 exceptions, release the remainder with targeted, black-bar redactions and indicate the specific legal basis per excerpt.
• Given the environmental nature of the subject matter, please apply Regulation 1367/2006 and the presumption in favour of disclosure and conduct the Article 4(2) overriding public-interest test on a line-by-line basis.
• Where third-party consultation is required, please proceed under Article 4(4) without delaying partial release.

Administrative handling
• Please register this request and confirm the case number.
• If parts of this request are better handled by another institution or service (e.g., Commission services), transfer the relevant parts under Article 6(2) and inform me of the routing.
• If the request is considered “wide,” I am open to a pragmatic narrowing discussion, provided you first share a list of hit-counts by custodian and date ranges, and any document inventories, to enable targeted scoping.
• If some records are classified or restricted, please confirm their existence, classification level, and the applicable declassification or review regime.

Public-interest statement
The request concerns cross-border environmental governance and energy diplomacy. Disclosure serves a manifest public interest in accountability around methane mitigation policy and third-country influence on EU regulatory implementation.

Sincerely,
Luis Miguel Hurtado Coronado
Senior Investigator

Dear EEAS,

I am hereby submitting a confirmatory application pursuant to Article 7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.

Your services have informed me that there was no record and/or no documentation relating to meetings with LNG Allies or the said Embassy Working Group during the relevant period.

However, this assessment is objectively inconsistent with the factual record.

Specifically:
contrary to the transparency resolution communicated to me in the initial reply, there was a meeting of the working group in question held on 3 April 2025, as reflected on the following news article (https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-l...). This meeting was not only convened, but took place, and was explicitly referenced in third-party correspondence.

Given this, the “no documents” determination is structurally non-credible.

Accordingly, I request that you carry out a full review of the negative reply, and conduct a new document search covering all document typologies as defined in Regulation 1049/2001 (notes, minutes, agendas, preparatory documents, emails, attachments, briefings, talking points, shared files, Teams/VC call notes, or any other format), with specific reference to the meeting of 3 April 2025. It might be helpful to search specifically for correspondence with Fred H. Hutchison, LNG Allies' CEO.

This confirmatory request is therefore based on an error of assessment in the initial stage:
the meeting existed; therefore relevant documents 'ipso facto' must exist.

Given the above, I ask the EEAS to:

1.- annul the initial negative reply, and 2.- release the documents concerning the 3 April 2025 meeting and any other possible posterior exchange between the parties, or — if partial access is claimed — justify each redaction line-by-line in accordance with Article 4, with a damage test that is concrete, individualized, and non-hypothetical.

I look forward to your confirmatory decision within the legal deadline.

Yours sincerely,

Luis Miguel Hurtado Coronado.