According to the Washington Post, Peter Nickles, the General Counsel for the District of Columbia has asked the D.C. Council to give the District an unspecified time limit in which to address FOIA requests DC considers to be burdensome.
Currently, the District allows 15 days to respond to a FOIA request, with a 10 day extension. Nickles wants to increase this time period--but he won't say by how much or even if it should be a specific time.
I believe, in certain instances, 25 days may be too short of a time period. However, there needs to be a date certain for the requests to be finished by so that litigation may be triggered. While I am not advocating litigation in all cases, many times it is the only way to get the government's attention. Further, there needs to be strict rules in place when the longer deadline can be invoked--and some type of review process to make sure it is not being misused.