OPENNESS FACT SHEET SUMMARY

Openness: A Fundamental Principle.

Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their Government. Our Nation's progress depends on the free flow of information. Without such trust, the essential functions of a democratic Government cannot be accomplished.

Openness: An Administration Policy.

President Clinton has said that ". . . an informed citizenry is essential to the democratic process and . . . the more the American people know about their Government the better they will be governed. Openness in Government is essential to accountability . . .."

Acting on this belief, on April 17, 1995, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12958, Classified National Security Information. This Order emphasizes the Administration's commitment to open Government while recognizing that the national interest requires that certain information must still be maintained in confidence in order to protect our citizens, our democratic institutions, and our participation within the community of nations.

In recent years dramatic changes have altered, although certainly not eliminated, the national security threats that we confront. These changes provide a greater opportunity to emphasize our commitment to open Government.

Openness in the Department of Energy: A Unique Opportunity and Challenge.

President Clinton has called upon "all Federal Departments and Agencies to renew their commitment to . . . [the] underlying principles of Government openness . . .." A strong commitment to openness is particularly important at the Department of Energy. A tradition of secrecy affects progress on key missions, particularly cleanup of nuclear weapon facilities, disposition of nuclear weapon materials, and stemming nuclear proliferation. Our goal is to earn public trust through openness, thereby advancing the Department's missions.

The President's challenge is especially significant for the Department. Executive Order 12958 sets a new direction towards a more open Government, but it only applies to one kind of classified information, called National Security Information. The Department of Energy, under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, is responsible for another kind of classified information called Restricted Data (and "Formerly Restricted Data" which is, despite its name, Department of Defense). These kinds of classified information do not fall under the scope of Executive Order 12958. They concern nuclear weapon-related technology and have long been recognized as being so sensitive as to warrant the special protection that are provided by classification as Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data.

As a result, in order to fulfill President Clinton's commitment to Government openness, the Department of Energy must not only implement the President's Executive order but must also help redirect the policies and procedures governing the Government-wide classification and declassification programs for Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data.

The Department of Energy is taking a wide variety of measures to deliver on the commitment to a more open Government.

The Beginning.

Secretary O'Leary established openness as a top priority and outlined the Department's Openness Initiative in December 1993. The Secretary announced the largest declassification of information in the Department of Energy's history including the fact that 20 percent of all nuclear weapons tests had been kept secret and that some previously secret tests resulted in small radiation releases to the environment. The Secretary also discussed the use of radioactive materials in experiments on humans over four decades.

Delivering on Promises.

Secretary O'Leary emphasized the Department's commitment to openness in June 1994 by announcing additional major declassifications including the locations and quantities of the Department's stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Other material released included "Drawing Back the Curtain of Secrecy," a history of all Restricted Data information declassified to that time; draft public guidelines for the Department's classification process; and the actual guidance documents used to identify Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information. From December 1993 to June 1994, declassification reviews of the Department's voluminous classified documents resulted in the public's access to over one million pages.

The Department of Energy's Challenge.

Changing the Paradigm.

The Department is continuing to open its past and present to the public. However, changes must be made in policies and procedures if openness is to take root and flourish at the Department of Energy. We are taking several steps:

"The Fundamental Classification Policy Review."

Several years ago, a major survey was undertaken to determine whether the current Restricted Data classification policies and procedures were still adequate and appropriate in light of the rapidly evolving world situation. A major recommendation of this survey was to conduct a detailed, fundamental technical review to determine what nuclear weapon-related information should still be classified as Restricted Data in a post-Cold War world and what Restricted Data could safely be declassified and publicly released. The review was conducted by some of the nation's most knowledgeable experts, and led by Dr. Al Narath, former Director of the Sandia National Laboratories. It was launched on March 16, 1995. Prior to the study, many citizens told the Department that while they supported strong controls on information that could be useful to proliferants, terrorists, or hostile powers, they also believed too much information was being classified, and the policies underlying the Department of Energy's classification practices were in need of review.

Consistent with the President's open Government goals, two public meetings were held, the first in Washington, D.C., and the second in Oakland, California. These meetings allowed the public to help guide the Department in determining the best classification policies for the future. This may be the first time citizens have been asked to participate from the beginning in the formulation of their Government's basic classification policies.

The Department is releasing for public comment the resulting draft report entitled "The Fundamental Classification Policy Review." It contains many recommendations for both declassification and for enhancing the effectiveness of the Restricted Data classification system. The principal recommendations include:

• Amending the Atomic Energy Act to change the current concept that information can be "born classified," as has been the case with Restricted Data. Justification will be required to classify Restricted Data information, which includes the design, manufacture, or utilization of atomic weapons; special nuclear material production; and the use of special nuclear material for energy production.
• Building "high fences" around key nuclear weapons information.
• Advocating declassification of information whose dissemination would not be prejudicial to the security interests of the United States and, indeed, the world.
• Amending the Atomic Energy Act to allow selected data now classified as Formerly Restricted Data under that Act to be classified as National Security Information under Executive Order 12958, thereby simplifying the classification system and reducing costs.
• Instituting a graded system for segregation and portion marking of all new Restricted Data documents, thereby preventing one Restricted Data reference from making an entire document classified.
• Amending the Atomic Energy Act to narrow the scope of Controlled Nuclear Information.

The recommendations in the draft report will be refined and implemented after public comment and review by affected Government Agencies. In the event that all of the declassifications recommended are implemented, significantly more Restricted Data in many subject areas will be declassified.

Classification and Declassification Regulation:

More recently, another study looked at how we should change our internal guidelines and practices to maximize openness now and in the future. The focus of this effort was not what Restricted Data could be declassified, but rather what legal and procedural obstacles existed to keep the Department from fulfilling its commitment to openness. The results of this study were presented to representative stakeholders. These stakeholders recommended that a regulation developed through public notice and comment should replace internal guidelines and practices that had governed classification and declassification for 50 years. A study by the National Academy of Sciences also recommended that a publicly developed regulation could correct many problems in the Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data programs and would help ensure progress in openness.

Such a regulation would codify how the Government classifies Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data. Therefore, the Department has prepared a draft classification and declassification regulation for public comment. This is a new and important departure from the past, the first time that the public has an opportunity to participate in determining how the Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data programs are designed and implemented. The draft regulation is currently undergoing internal and interagency review. The target for publishing them for public comment in the Federal Register is by the end of February. A summary of the highlights of the regulation is released today for public comment. A key aspect of the proposed regulation is to formalize in the Federal Register several prohibitions on classification including topics solely bearing on environment, safety and health. After incorporating appropriate comments, and the Department of Energy review, the new regulation will become part of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Openness Advisory Panel:

The National Academy of Sciences study also recommended that the Department establish an advisory group regarding the Department's classification policy. This group would be appointed by the Secretary and composed of experienced outside experts representative of the major stakeholders. As a result, the Department is establishing an Openness Advisory Panel to assist in implementing the Department of Energy's Openness Initiative. The draft regulation described above establishes the permanent requirement for this panel.

Releasing Information.

In addition to the fundamental structural and institutional changes described above, openness ultimately must mean the actual public release of information desired by the public. From December 1993, declassification reviews have resulted in over two million pages being released to the public. The following measures continue the Department's commitment to openness:

"Plutonium: The First 50 Years":

The Department is releasing a formerly classified report, "Plutonium: The First 50 Years," concerning the production, acquisition, use, disposition, and inventories of plutonium in the United States over the past 50 years. In unprecedented fashion, the report announces the following:

• Plutonium produced in the United States.
• Plutonium acquired from foreign countries.
• Transfer of United States-origin plutonium to foreign countries.
• Plutonium expended as a result of various processes.

With respect to plutonium inventories, the Department is announcing the Government's total inventory of plutonium, 99.5 metric tons, which includes the holdings of both the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. This newly declassified data is incorporated into the report, "Plutonium: The First 50 Years." In 1993, the Department declassified and revealed that the United States plutonium inventory was 33.5 metric tons. However, this total excluded the quantities of plutonium at the Pantex Plant in Texas and in the Department of Defense nuclear stockpile, which is revealed today for the first time.

The information publicly released for the first time today is directly relevant to the current debate about the proper management and ultimate disposition of plutonium. The information releases are consistent with the recommendation of the report "Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium" by the National Academy of Sciences, and with the 1995 National Academy of Sciences review of the Department of Energy classification policy and procedures. In addition, the release of information by the United States should encourage other nuclear powers, such as Russia, to declassify and publicly release similar information.

Declassification provides multi-level transparency which is necessary as the basis for developing the mutual trust needed to successfully conduct any meaningful, international negotiations. Declassification is important to conducting meaningful bilateral inspections at current or former nuclear facilities under arms control and reduction agreements, such as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It is also essential for the granting of access to inspectors to facilities as required under the provisions of international safeguards and nonproliferation agreements. That access builds trust and helps to develop mutual confidence between nations thereby reducing the risk of conflict.

The quantities of plutonium and uranium listed in the Fact Sheets are based upon the best available records, some of which are very old. Re-evaluation of the original records may result in some revision of the quantities.

Since the Department has received numerous inquiries from the public, a similar report will be written about the production, use, disposition, and inventories of highly enriched uranium covering the last 50 years and will be released in about 1 year.

Implementation of Executive Order 12958:

Although most Department of Energy classified information is Restricted Data, the Department fully supports the goals of Executive Order 12958, which applies only to classified National Security Information. This Executive Order will result in the declassification of millions of documents during the next 5 years. The Executive Order requires that all National Security Information in documents that are of permanent historical value and that are more than 25-years old be automatically declassified with or without review within 5 years with certain limited exceptions. As part of its implementation of that Executive order, the Department is seeking public comment on its first National Security Information declassification guide and plan for implementation of Executive Order 12958. The purpose of the draft declassification guide is to describe how those limited exceptions apply to Department of Energy information while the purpose of the plan is to describe how such large volumes will be declassified while assuring that the national security is protected.

Declassification Productivity Initiative:

Prior to public release, all classified documents must be reviewed for declassification. This is the case whether the document has been requested under the Freedom of Information Act, as part of litigation involving the Department, or as part of systematic review projects to publicly release whole collections of documents. Due to the complex nature of classified Restricted Data, the Department conducts comprehensive, technically-based reviews of all documents proposed for declassification. Classified information in such documents often concerns nuclear weapons proliferation, terrorism, and foreign policy matters. The Department trains, tests, and certifies each individual who is authorized to declassify documents so that they have specific knowledge about whether a document can be declassified. To minimize the possibility of errors, the Department also has advanced computer programs available to document reviewers. To further our commitment to openness, the Department is aggressively pursuing artificial intelligence techniques to provide faster and cheaper ways to declassify documents for the public. This effort, known as the Declassification Productivity Initiative, is geared toward developing better technology to enable us to separate classified information more quickly and accurately from publicly releasable information in documents.

Increased Access.

Merely declassifying a document and putting it into storage does not promote openness. Similarly, in order for Government officials to be fully responsive to the needs of stakeholders, there must be more opportunity for constructive interactions. Some of the ways this can be accomplished are "technical" such as better utilizing Internet; other ways involve more face-to-face dialogue between Departmental officials and stakeholders. Therefore, the Department has taken a number of steps to improve access to information and to improve the access of the public to the processes of Government and to the officials responsible for such processes. These activities include:

• Improving responsiveness under the Freedom of Information Act.
• Accessing more Departmental documents via Internet.
• Removing unnecessary security barriers to allow greater physical access to Departmental sites thereby reducing security costs while making our sites more "approachable."
• Increasing openness in the procurement and budget processes.
• Encouraging local stakeholder involvement in removing barriers to site remediation.
• Providing more opportunities for public participation in all aspects of the operation of Department of Energy sites.

Attachment

Nuclear Information Declassified by Program

(Estimated)

*1945 - 100% Classified