The Obama administration announced Tuesday it will ditch regulations that subjected large portions of White House correspondence to public records requests, a decision derided by transparency advocates who wryly noted it was issued during a week celebrating open access to government.

The notice exempting the White House's Office of Administration from the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act was contained in Tuesday's Federal Register, reversing a three-decade-old policy during Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the FOIA law.

Anne Weismann, interim executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), says the step "makes mockery of the administration’s commitment to transparency, especially given that it's Sunshine Week.”

“The White House has reversed a decades long practice of opening the files of [the Office of Administration] to the public,” she says. “Apparently they have abandoned even the appearance of transparency."

USA Today reports the change formalizes a 2009 appeals court ruling that found CREW did not deserve access to millions of Bush White House emails because the office is not subject to FOIA.

The appeals court ruled the White House still has to preserve emails under a different law, the Presidential Records Act, for release at least five years after the end of a presidential administration.

"This rule is published solely to align relevant provisions of the Code of Federal Regulations with well-settled law," the administration's public notice says, and therefore it does not require public comment or a 30-day delay in implementation.

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative transparency group Judicial Watch, tells U.S. News he doubts the move is merely long-overdue housekeeping.

“I have no doubt this move is to try to cut off any public inquiry into Barack Obama’s emails,” Fitton says. “We won’t be put off and are taking steps to find out what the White House wants to hide about the president’s emails.”

The White House has won other battles against transparency activists, such as a 2013 appeals court ruling against Judicial Watch that found the White House is not required to release its visitor logs. The White House began voluntarily releasing some visitor logs dated from Sept. 15, 2009, after a district court ruled in favor of a lawsuit from CREW that sought mandatory disclosure.

"I continue to be mystified as to how this administration, which came to office on the promise of positive change and transparency, continues to promulgate policies that are antithetical to that aim," says Jack Abramoff, a former Republican lobbyist who emerged from prison a transparency advocate. "Unless there are real national security issues involved, how can President Obama permit this?"

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Obama has on several occasions claimed to run the most transparent administration in U.S. history – an often-ridiculed assertion due to its unprecedented crackdown on leaks to the press and its withholding of documents relating to scandals, mass surveillance and policies such as assassinating U.S. citizens.

On Monday, Department of Justice leaders hailed Obama as a transparency pioneer at an event celebrating official openness.