ML20137C757

Requests Commission Approval of Staff Proposal to Transfer Listed Amount to Anl Contractor for Human Radiation Interagency Working Group

ML20137C757
Person / Time
Issue date:	03/18/1997
From:	Callan L NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO)
To:
References
SECY-94-028-C, SECY-94-28-C, SECY-97-064, SECY-97-064-R, SECY-97-64, SECY-97-64-R, NUDOCS 9703250108
Download: ML20137C757 (8)

Text

/7 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 f/ // // // /7 fl__/7 "fA 4,

g. . ......................

h RELEASED TO THE PDR

=vy\ b 5 I l hksho [pJ 5 date (hitials

,f .............. ........

POLICY ISSUE (NEGATIVE CONSENT)

March 18, 1997 SECY-97-064 FOR: The Commissioners FROM: L. Joseph Callan Executive Director for Operations

SUBJECT:

REQUEST FOR FUNDS SO AS TO MAKE AVAILABLE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION DOCUMENTS RELATED TO HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS PURPOSE:

To obtain Commission approval of the staff's proposal to transfer $50,000 to Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), a contractor for the Human Radiation Interagency Working Group, in order that Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents related to human radiation experiments can be put into electronic format and made available to the public on the World Wide Web.

BACKGROUND:

In Executive Order 12891, issued in January 1994 the President established the Advisory Co'.1mittee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) and directed Federal departments and agencies to search for and retrieve records related to human radiation ex]eriments. In response, the departments and agencies concerned formed t1e cabinet-level Human Radiation Interagency Working Group.

NRC was not a member of the Group because neither NRC nor its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted, funded, or sponsored radiation research involving human subjects.

In a Staff Requirements Memorandum dated January 13, 1995, the Commission did not object to the staff's recommendation in SECY-94-28. " Contact with Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments and Release of CONTACT: Paul F. Goldberg, NMSS/IMNS NOTE: TO BE MADE PUBLICLY i.ILABLE (301) 415-7842 mlEN THE FINAL SRM IS MADE AVAILABLE djN i cw <+ 3 o 2900 3 o m , a em.m 4 17

~ @,

t49 o3ga fag 44 .ll!!!!!!lll!l. Ell Il

_ ~_ m m ammmmmmmmmmmmma

2 o

^

The Commissioners 2 i

Information on Medical Experiments Involving Human Subjects," to 3rovide copies of NRC documents to ACHRE and to the central archive then 3eing i

maintained for the-Interagency Group by the Department of Energy. In the ,

SRM, the Commission.also " expressed concern about the inequity involved in the

expenditure of resources that would be required. While small, there is no

' regulatory benefit to licensees who must Say the fee for this activity through 4

their fees. This is another example of t1e inequity that arises from the

requirements of OBRA-90. The staff should explore a mechanism with ACHRE for i j reimbursement of the NRC resources that would be expended and inform the

. Commission." Following discussions with ACHRE, DOE and NRC's contractor, Oak j Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the staff res

! Taylor to the Commission, dated April 12. 1995,ponded that DOE, inon a memo from behalf of Mr.

ACHRE.

had agreed to pay the ex)enses of ORNL for 3roviding NRC documents and related i

information to ACHRE. T1e staff explored t1e possibility of DOE's reimbursing l

NRC for NRC staff time and administrative expenses and concluded that the

provision of documents to another Federal agency is a normal administrative expense in keeping with NRC's statutory mission, that the NRC resources used have been small, and that the reimbursement would not justify the difficulty

involved in an interagency transfer of funds.

' The documents involved are primarily NRC and AEC license files, and a few subject files, retrieved and reviewed by the staff and ORNL, in response to inquiries from outside the Agency (requests by other agencies, requests by 4

ACHRE, requests under the Freedom of Information Act), or identified by the staff as pos'sibly involving human radiation experiments. In addition, the staff has provided ANL with copies of 11 reports by ORNL. These reports

! contain ORNL's reviews of the files for information on non-routine uses of licensed radioactive material in humans. NRC did not conduct a systematic search of its files, as the other Federal agencies did, because NRC. as an Agency that did not sponsor, fund, or conduct research, was not subject to the .

Executive Order.

.i 1 The Interagency Group has arranged for ANL to establish a site on the World

Wide Web to make available the full text of the documents retrieved by the '

Interagency Group and used by ACHRE in its review. The members of the group have provided their documents to ANL. In a meeting on January 28. 1997, and in the attached memorandum from Colonel Claud Bailey. Jr., the Interagency j Group has recuested that NRC provide the funds to include NRC documents in the interagency catabase on the World Wide Web. The requested 50,000 dollars '

would be used in scanning, formatting, and placing the documents in the

' interagency database.  :

Staff is now completing the redaction of the documents to remove any proprietary, classified, private predecisional, copyright, or investigatory information. There remain ap3roximately 15 cubic feet of files to deliver to i ANL. NRC would also write a 3rief narrative descri) tion of the contents of its documents. and would sign the release form in t1e enclosure to Colonel Bailey's letter, allowing ANL to reproduce and distribute the files.

l 0

J The Commissioners 3  !

DISCUSSION:

The availability of the documents in electronic form on a website, with the system's extensive indexing and search capability, would make the documents

, widely and conveniently available and would . spare NRC the necessity of l

providing documents in response to requests. Since the system has been developed, tested, and is already operational. NRC would benefit from not having to pay a share of startup costs for the system. NRC's share is determined to be fair and reasonable.

l As part of a series of activities under the President's " Openness in Government Initiative." the availability of documents related to human radiation experiments has a high government-wide priority. NRC has the third-largest collection of documents of the Federal agencies involved, and the Interagency Group wants to assemble a couprehensive database to provide a complete and clear view of radiation experimentation.  ;

COORDINATION:

)

l The Office of the General Counsel has reviewed this paper and has no legal objection. ,

l The Chief Information Officer and Office of Information Resources Management have no objection tc this paper. 1 The Chief Financiai Officer has no objection to the resource estimates contained in this paper. l CONCLUSIQti: ,

Unless the Commission directs otherwise, the staff intends to use existing funds to transfer the 50.000 dollars requested by the Interagency Group and to sign the release allowing ANL to reproduce and distribute the files.

1 l

. o ph Callan  :

Exec tive Director for Operations

Attachment:

Memorandum from C. Bailey l to H. Thompson dated 2/6/97 l DISTRIBUTION: SECY NOTE: In the absence of instructions to the Commissioners CFO contrary, SECY will notify the staff on Wednesday, oGC EDo April 2, 1997 that the Commission, by negative oIG SECY consent, assents to the action proposed in this oPA paper.

oCA CIo

, i l

d Department of Defense j/* Radiation Experiments Command Center 6801 Telegraph Road

" Alexandna, Virginia 22310-3398 l

l I

6 February 1997 l

MEMORANDUM FOR ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS, 1 ATTN.: Mr.11 ugh Thompson

. l

Subject:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) support of President's Openness in Government Initiative l i

4 i

3 This memorandum serves as a follow up to my visit to your agency on 28 January 1997.

Background:

Since January 1994, the Interagency Working Group which is comprised of depanment heads from the DOE, DoD, CIA,1111S, NASA, NIII, DOJ and OMB engaged in a joint effon to locate and retrieve records related to human radiation experiments (HRE's) conducted or sponsored by their respective departments during the period 1944 - 1994. This effort was in compliance with Executive Order 12891, January 1994 which mandated the search and established the Advisory Committee on lluman Radiation Experiments (ACPRE). The Advisory Committee was charged with reviewingdocuments retrieved by the departments and agencies, and within one year from the date ofits appointment, to provide a final report to the President with appropriate findings and recommendations. The final report was provided to the President on 5 October 1996.

In support of the President's Openness in Government Initiative the Interagency Working Group has been aggressively involved in making retrieved records publicly available through such forums as reading rooms, books, oral histories and the Internet. These public access initiatives support recommendation 17 of the ACliRE Final Report and highlights the government's commitment to this effort.

Consistent with the spirit and intent of the Executive Order and ACHRE Final Report, responsible departments and agencies, the DoD, DOE, CI A, lillS, NASA, Nili and VA, have been providing lire archival information via Argonne National Laboratory (sole source provider for this project) for input on the liuman Radiation Experiments Information Management System (IIREX)/ liREX is available on the World Wide Web, thus providing access to documents and other information sources related to if RE's.

Each department or agency is funding, on a fair share basis, the digitizing of their records for input on the liREX system. In this regard, as a player in this effort, your agency has retrieved more than 15 cubic feet of records. Therefore, we need your help in completing appropriate NRC contracting and funding requirements in coordination with Argonne National Laboratory to ensure timely completion of this cooperative effort.

EDO -- G970124

1 s

a Enclosed is a breakout of relative costs as provided by Argonne. Mr. Paul Goldberg, your agency's POC, has additional information.

Thank you for your support in this matter.

/

/

lau ~epl .

I RAGENCY - 'ING LOUP ublic Access Pr et Officer 1

l I

1

, - - . - --- - .- _ - - ~ - - . . - _ _ - - . _ . - - - -

f i

i .

i f

Argonne National Laboratory Statement of Work

- In response to President Clinton's 1994 call for oper.ncss.. federal agencies and flicilities have

. performed an exhaustive search to uncover and organize a comprehensive record collection concerning the federally sanctioned human radiation experiments that took place in the 1940's.

'50's, and '60's. Argonne National Laboratory developed the first iteration of the Human Radiation Experiment Information Management System (IMEh) for internet release in April, 1995. In October 1995, having already released the final repon, the President's Advisory  ;.

Committee for Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) passed its document holdings from all panicipating federal agencies to Argonne National Laboratory with the intention of placing the '

entire collection on the Internet.

The impetus for thL . zssive efTort to identify and release documents was to provide the -

American public with a comprehensive and clear view of the experimentation that took place. In order to uphold the goal of openness, it is absolutely imperative to avail the most complete set of ;

historical records to the American public. The interagency version of HREX currently contains ,

documents from the following six federal agencies: Departments of Energy, Defense, Veterans' Afrairs, Health and Human Services; the Central Intelligence Agency; and the National

. Aeronautics and Space Administration. In order to present a complete historical picture of the  ;

experiments, it is desired to add the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's record collection to the

( internet repository.  !

Task:

Argonne National Laboratory proposes to build the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's collection j of human radiation experiment documents into a full-text Internet-based search engine which will  ;

reside parallel to the collections of DOE, DOD, HHS, NASA, VA, and CIA at the site "http://hrex. dis anl gov" Imading the images and their corresponding search engine onto the Internet is an htricate process consisting (very simply) of scanning, converting images to text, 1

nmning wotd identification algorithms, auditing the text files, and building the databases 1 Cost Estimate:

^

The NRC will be able to leveraue Aruonne's extensive experience and iesearch in historical records management prior to beginning the NRC collection, the NRC will not be responsible for ]

"stan-up" costs. While the HREX home page is still in development, the core design is solid and will not require sienificantly more effort. Likewise with the process of historical record i organization -- A,gonne has already processed more than 300,000 pages for DOE, DOD, VA, N AS A, HHS, and CI A -- little additional time is needed for procedural research The historical collection held at the NRC is estimated at 15 boxes, or about 38,000 pages.

Argonne estimates that the scanning, indexing, text conversion and enhancement, data management, manual keyword entry for poor quality images, database bu!! ding, and quality )

! control and assurance for the collection wenld cost approximately 550K The estimated l completion date for the task is 6 months aller the starting date.

1 l

i I

1

1. '~~f'T . ---s' # eg-. op +,, _ __

l 1

6 HREX Con:ributions and Page Counts by Agency Agency Approximate Page Count Contribution DOE 260,000 $400 K DOD 200,000 $400 K f

DVA 25,000 $50 K DHliS 14,394 $50 K

NASA 10,000 $50 K

~

CIA 1402 $0 4

I 3

1 j

l l

l l

l l

i

l  ;

t l-i 6 t -

i RELEASE l

I . Description of documents and information conveyed:

L ,

I l

This certifies that the above documents and information as submitted to the University of Chicago .

l as Operator of Argonne National Laboratory ("Argonne") have been released for reprodoction and distribution by any media now known or hereafter invented, by Argonne or by any party to whom Argonne may transfbr the rights to reproduce and distribute. They contain no information that need be withheld from publication because of privacy or confidentiality, national security interest, paten:

considerations or other proprietary information interests.

I represent and warrant that the documents and information contain no material to which copyright has been or will be asserted.

Agency: Nuclear Regulatory Commission By:

Title:

Date:

1 l

I l

I i

t- ,

i I

I i

, _ _ _ , _i