ML20057F135
| ML20057F135 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/06/1993 |
| From: | Remick F NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Curtiss J WINSTON & STRAWN |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9310140172 | |
| Download: ML20057F135 (4) | |
Text
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UNITED STATES l'
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION n
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October 6, 1993 CHAIRMAN James R.
Curtiss, Esq.
Winston & Strawn 1400 L Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
20005-3502
Dear Mr. Curtiss:
The Commission appreciates your efforts to ensure your compliance with the post-employment restrictions set forth in 18 U.S.C.
207.
The Commission is cognizant that review of additional NRC documents, some of which are not available to the public, will be required to make conflict of interest determinations on matters not covered by your August 25, 1993 submissions.
(In those submissions you informed us that you had disqualified yourself from participation in certain matters that are being handled by Winston & Strawn.)
The Commission has given considerable thought to the best means for this to be achieved and is committed to following the approach set forth in the enclosure to this letter.
The NRC recognizes that you and other former NRC Presidential Appointees may need access to nonpublic information to make conflict of interest compliance judgments relating to Federal ethics requirements or bar rules, when such rules are applicable.
The Commission has not previously adopted procedures governing conflict of interest reviews for former Presidential appointees.
It is now in the process of doing so.
The Commission has developed the attached procedures in order-to accommodate your request in a timely fashion.
As a former Presidential appointee, you should follow the attached procedures and should contact our Office of the General Counsel, which, under NRC Management Directive 7.5, is responsible for providing ethics advice to former NRC employees.
That office will review the pertinent documents, and provide limited access to and discuss nonpublic agency records with you before it provides its legal advice on conflict of interest matters.
This disclosure is solely for the limited purpose of enabling you to make conflict of interest or, as the case might be, bar rule compliance judgments.
The NRC has concluded that the procedures described above are necessary to prevent even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The appearance of giving preferential treatment to a private organization or individual is particularly likely if a former NRC Presidential appointee were to have access to nonpublic agency records and his or her employer has business 9310140172 931006 PDR COMMS NRCC CDRRESPONDENCE PDR
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l before the NRC.
As noted above, the Office of the General Counsel is prepared to' conduct any necessary conflict of interest t
reviews for you upon request.
The agency looks forward to working with you to ensure that you will be able to make required i
conflict of interest determinations in a timely fashion.
After the Commission has had an opportunity to consider these issues on a generic basis, we will revise NRC Management i
Directives to implement any approved guidance.
We will send you a
a copy of the revised Management Directive as soon as it is issued.
l Sincerely, j
or e J.
emick Chairman
Enclosure:
Procedures
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k Procedures Governing Former Commissioner Curtiss' Access to Agency Records Maintained In Storage That Were Acquired or Generated By His Office During His Tenure as Commissioner 1.
Mr. Curtiss has reviewed his index of documents relating to High-Level Waste.
He has marked those documents which he believes are personal records that are not agency records for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and has provided this list to the Office of the General Counsel. He has also identified correspondence between himself and his personal staff.
These latter documents are agency records for purposes of the FOIA.
2.
Employees of NRC's Public Document Room have reviewed Mr.
Curtiss' Index of High-Level Waste Documents and determined which ones have already been made available to the public.
Mr. Curtiss has provided a copy of the marked up index to the Office of the General Counsel.
3.
The Office of the Secretary will retrieve the boxes containing the high-level waste documents and remove those records which Mr. Curtiss has designated as personal records not subject to the FOIA.
Those documents will be reviewed by his former Executive / Legal Assistant to ensure that they are not
" agency records".
The documents that are not agency records will be provided to Mr. Curtiss who can either retain or dispose of them.
4.
The records that have been identified by Mr. Curtiss as correspondence between himself and his personal staff will be segregated by the Office of the Secretary.
They will be reviewed by agency officials only if necessary for official purposes, such as conflict of interest reviews, responses to requests by our l
Congressional oversight committees, or if they fall within the scope of an FOIA request.
Mr. Curtiss will be informed of FOIA requests.
5.
Copies of high-level waste documents in the office files of Commissioner Curtiss which are already available in the Public Document Room will be segregated and made available to Mr. Curtiss.
Mr. Curtiss can either take these documents or leave them in courtesy storage.
An index identifying these documents as part of Mr. Curtiss' office files will be placed in the Public Document Room and the local Public Document Rooms established for the Yucca Mountain proceeding and made available to the Department of Energy, the State of Nevada, Indian Tribes, and others who have been heavily involved in matters relating to the proposed high-level waste repository in Nevada.
6.
The agency records in the office files of Commissioner Curtiss which are not yet public will be reviewed to determine what can be released to'the public.
The NRC, as part of its openness policy relating to high-level waste matters, will release as much as it reasonably can.
The Commission will endeavor to complete this review in early October, 1993.
Any documents made public from this review will be made available to Mr. Curtiss.
Mr. Curtiss can take these documents or leave them in storage.
Copies of these documents will be placed in a special file to be maintained in the Public Document Room and the Local Public Documents Rooms established for the Yucca Mountain proceeding.
The Department of Energy, the State of Nevada, Indian Tribes, and others who have been heavily involved in matters relating to the proposed high-level waste repository in Nevada vill be informed of the availability of these documents.
7.
If Mr. Curtiss, after reviewing the publicly available high-level waste documents, determines that he needs a legal opinion on conflict of interest matters relating to high-level waste, he should contact the office of the General Counsel.
Before issuing an opinion addressing federal post-employment restrictions or providing information relevant to bar ethics rules determinations, OGC shall discuss its proposed determinations with Mr. Curtiss and provide limited access to and discuss non-public high-level waste documents with Mr. Curtiss as the Office of the General Counsel deems appropriate. This disclosure is solely for the limited purpose of enabling Mr. Curtiss to make conflict of interest, or as the case might be, bar rule compliance judgments.
8.
Mr. Curtiss may also request access to material contained in the files previously maintained by his office that are in storage relating to matters other than high-level waste. The procedures for access will generally be followed that are described above.
The agency will apply the standards that it uses in responding to FOIA requests to determine which documents will be made public.
In addition, different arrangements may be made regarding how these documents will be filed in the Public Document Room.
9.
All the costs of retrieving, reviewing, and duplicating the documents described above will be borne by the NRC.