Democratizing the U.S. Department of Energy: Progress and Policy Impact

Introduction

Public policy decisions that involve nuclear technology, whether civil or military, present fundamental challenges to democratic societies. They involve complex technical issues and risks that are difficult to quantify or measure over time. Information often is highly restricted because of its (actual or purported) national security value. Because of the high national importance traditionally accorded to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy technology, the responsible agencies generally enjoy special access to national leaders and are frequently shielded from public oversight. In the United States, secrecy and resistance to public participation characterized nuclear decision making throughout the Cold War to such an extent that the credibility of the lead organizations became severely compromised.

Today, as a result of post-Cold War changes in U.S. nuclear forces and doctrine, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is undergoing a fundamental change in its core military mission, which is generating many controversial policy initiatives. It has become imperative for DOE to improve its ability to build consensus around agency decisions, so that it can implement the necessary changes to adopt U.S. nuclear weapons policy to current conditions.

This paper discusses the direct relationship between DOE''s traditionally secretive policymaking processes -- which reflect its nuclear responsibilities -- and the low levels of public trust and credibility that the agency enjoyed by the end of the Cold War. It then examines DOE''s "Openness Initiative," the most prominent and well-publicized of several DOE actions which seek to regaining public confidence by making the agency more responsive and accessible. Finally, it assess the relationship between the Openness Initiative and DOE''s programmatic goals -- in other words, how process changes affect policy outcomes.

The Department of Energy''s Nuclear Role: A Brief History

As illustrated in Figure 1, the Department of Energy in its current form is a descendant of the agencies that managed nuclear weapons development and the U.S. nuclear power industry. Indeed, nuclear activities, more than any of the agency''s other wide range of shifting responsibilities, have shaped DOE''s mission and its way of doing business. DOE''s military nuclear mission -- producing, testing, maintaining, and dismantling nuclear weapons -- is the aspect of its nuclear work that has left the greatest mark on the agency. (As detailed below, the department''s nuclear energy activities have been declassified since the 1950s; in recent years, moreover, these programs have been reduced to a minimal level.)

Figure 1: The Institutional Origins of the Department of Energy

Source: Terrence R. Fehner and Jack M. Holl, Department of Energy 1977-1994: A Summary History (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, 1994), p. 130.

After World War II, authority for nuclear energy activities was transferred from the Army (which oversaw the Manhattan Project) to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which was established under the McMahon Act of 1946. The AEC, which inherited the Manhattan Project''s nationwide infrastructure of laboratories and production facilities, was the sole government organization authorized to carry out nuclear research and development activities. Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, the agency''s primary mission was to build up the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, which entailed further enlarging the nuclear weapons production complex. The AEC also carried out some work on peaceful applications of atomic energy, and worked with the Navy to develop nuclear-powered submarines and surface ships.

In 1953, President Eisenhower delivered his famous "Atoms for Peace" speech, in which he called for developing peaceful applications of atomic energy, especially nuclear power reactors. In 1954, Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act to allow private companies to participate in nuclear energy development in partnership with the government. Over the next two decades, the United States developed a sizeable nuclear power industry: as of 1962, 53 power reactors were being designed and built under a government demonstration program, and by 1967, 75 plants were on order for commercial power generation.1 At the same time, U.S. nuclear weapon production was booming: the U.S. nuclear stockpile reached its peak levels in 1965-66, totaling more than 31,000 warheads.2

By the early 1970s, public concerns about nuclear reactor safety, the environmental impact of nuclear power generation, and disposing of radioactive wastes were growing. The AEC came under scrutiny for its dual role as regulator and promoter of nuclear power: critics viewed the agency as too closely intertwined with the nuclear industry and insufficiently responsive to other voices. Under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the AEC was abolished and its responsibilities for licensing and regulating civilian nuclear activities were transferred to the newly established Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Civilian energy activities were centralized in the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which inherited a majority of its budget and staff from the AEC, and continued to manage nuclear research and development activities, as well as nuclear weapon production.

President Jimmy Carter reorganized Federal energy structures again by creating the Department of Energy as part of his national energy plan. DOE absorbed ERDA, including its nuclear activities, which again constituted the largest share of the new department''s inherited facilities. The relative mix of DOE''s activities fluctuated greatly over the next two decades. A 1995 study by the U.S. General Accounting Office observed:

Almost from the time of its creation in 1977, DOE has been in transition. For its first 3 years, DOE''s programs emphasized research and initiatives to cope with a global energy crisis that disrupted U.S. and world markets and economies. By the mid-1980s, accelerating nuclear weapons production and expanding space-based defense research dominated DOE''s budget resources. Since the late 1980s, DOE''s budget has reflected a growing emphasis on solving a half-century''s environmental and safety problems caused by the nuclear weapons and research activities of DOE and its predecessors.3

The heterogeneous nature of DOE''s mission has been a major factor in the agency''s persistent management problems. DOE has often been called a dysfunctional agency, with poorly integrated programs and inadequate control over the numerous contractors it has historically relied on to manage and operate many of its facilities. The agency''s future was in question at several points during President Clinton''s first term: the White House considered breaking it up in late 1994, and several bills were introduced in Congress in 1995 after Republicans gained control of both houses and sought (ultimately unsuccessfully) to eliminate a Cabinet department.

A major policy argument that was raised against these proposals was the need to retain civilian control over nuclear weapons. Since the passage of the McMahon Act in 1946, nuclear weapon design, production, and testing has been the responsibility of DOE and its predecessors, while the Defense Department establishes nuclear weapon requirements and deploys the weapons in the field. Recent proposals to restructure or abolish DOE have generally called for transferring full responsibility for the nuclear arsenal to the Defense Department. But DOD, which might be expected to welcome this additional authority, has resisted such a shift. in 1995, Defense Secretary William Perry wrote to the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees:

Over the past 50 years, there has been a clear and distinct separation of the nuclear weapon-related roles of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy (and its predecessor agencies). This dual-agency approach has served the Nation well by creating institutional checks and balances that are vital for meeting the performance, safety, and reliability requirements of the nuclear arsenal.4

Opinion remains divided over whether DOE is the appropriate agency to manage the nuclear arsenal, or related activities such as environmental cleanup at weapons production sites, in the post-Cold War era.5 For better or worse, however, these functions remain there for the foreseeable future, and continue to impact on the agency''s operations.

Nuclear Secrecy at DOE

Secrecy was a defining feature of U.S. nuclear policy from the Manhattan Project forward, and continues to characterize much of DOE''s nuclear weapons activities. A description of the role of secrecy in DOE decision making requires a brief overview of procedures for classifying nuclear weapon-related information.

Under the Atomic Energy Act, data related to nuclear weapons is a separate domain from other classified information, controlled by special (and in some aspects, more restrictive) rules. Information about nuclear weapons is classified as Restricted Data (RD). Other classified information, controlled by executive order, falls under the separate heading of National Security Information (NSI). Both categories are subdivided into Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret.

NSI includes information related to national defense and foreign relations. Under the current Order, E.O. 12958, classifying NSI requires an affirmative decision that its release would cause identifiable damage to national security. With certain exceptions, NSI that has been certified to have permanent historical value must be automatically declassified within a given time period. If historically significant documents are more than 25 years old, they must be declassified by the year 2000, unless an agency invokes an exemption provided in the Order to keep them classified.6

RD concerns design, manufacture, or utilization of atomic weapons; production of special nuclear material (uranium and plutonium); and use of SNM to produce energy. In contrast to the automatic declassification policy for NSI, RD is considered to be "born classified," i.e., automatically classified from the moment anyone thinks of it or creates a document containing it. A related category, Formerly Restricted Data (FRD), is co-administered by the Defense Department. FRD concerns information related to military utilization of atomic weapons, such as the size of the stockpile and weapon deployment locations.7

Another category with the ironic name of Unclassified Controlled Nuclear Information (UCNI) was created in the Reagan years to protect unclassified information whose release could promote illegal nuclear weapons production, theft of nuclear equipment or materials, or sabotage of nuclear facilities. UCNI is not classified, but can only be shared with certain categories of U.S. citizens who have a "need to know." It has become widely used, although critics argue that the concept is vague, subject to abuse, and may not effectively protect truly sensitive information.8

This extensive classification system is a direct descendant of the wartime secrecy conditions under which the first atomic bomb was developed. It was created to keep nuclear weapon information from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War: as a DOE guide to classification of nuclear weapon information states, "In view of national objectives in the 1940s, literally everything concerning atomic energy programs was classified."9

Over time, some categories of nuclear information have been partially or fully declassified. Basic nuclear science information was made fully available by 1953, and all data on civilian nuclear power was declassified by 1959. As of 1993, according to DOE estimates, about 50 percent of all classified nuclear information had been declassified.10 Nuclear subjects that were for the most part unclassified as of early 1996 included:

Science and supporting technology -- mathematics, chemistry, theoretical and experimental physics, engineering, science, materials science, biology, and medicine;
Scientific instruments and equipment;
Magnetic confinement fusion technology;
Civilian nuclear power reactors;
Nuclear source materials (defined as uranium and thorium and ores containing them);
Generic weapons effects information;
Nuclear fuel reprocessing technology;
General descriptions of nuclear material production processes and theory of operation;
DOE special nuclear material (uranium and plutonium) inventories;
Waste products for all DOE nuclear weapon and material production operations;
Operational information relating to public/worker health and safety or to environmental quality;
Heavy water production technology; and
Design, development, and construction of high-voltage machines and particle accelerators.11

DOE''s current backlog of classified records totals about 280 million pages. A major goal of the Openness Initiative, which will be discussed further below, is to accelerate declassification of materials that can be released without damaging U.S. national security.

Many central aspects of U.S. nuclear policy -- such as the exact size of the nuclear stockpile; data on U.S. production and current stockpiles of highly enriched uranium (HEU); and the quantities of weapon-grade plutonium, HEU, and stockpiled nuclear weapons the United States plans to hold in reserve for possible re-expansion of the nuclear arsenal to Cold War levels -- remain secret today. Some of these restrictions are paradoxical. For example, DOE has declassified the total number of nuclear warheads currently scheduled for dismantlement and the amount of plutonium that will be produced as a result of this process, but has refused to declassify the average amount of plutonium in a nuclear weapon.As one former U.S. official pointed out to the author, withholding this figure does little to protect U.S. national security, since any potential terrorist interested in the subject could probably do long division and figure it out from the data that has been released. The United States and Russia have pledged to exchange data on the size and constitution of their respective nuclear arsenals, but DOE has resisted making the information that will potentiall be shared with Moscow available to U.S. researchers.

Nuclear secrecy extends beyond the classification system to include physical security (controlling access to protect facilities and materials); personnel security (granting clearances to access these restricted sites and documents, based on the individual''s trustworthiness and his or her job-related need for such access); and maintaining laws, regulations, and procedures for detecting breaches and punishing violators. In fiscal 1996, DOE spent an estimated $96 million for all of its activities associated with maintaining classified information, such as training personnel, managing documents, and providing physical security.12 However, secrecy imposes costs beyond these direct expenses. This paper now turns to the broader impact of secrecy on DOE operations.

Changing Conditions

In the late 1980s, two converging trends -- one international, one domestic -- raised fundamental questions about DOE''s nuclear weapon mission. Warming U.S.-Soviet relations led to major cuts in both sides'' nuclear forces, and with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the threat of large-scale nuclear war effectively disappeared. At the same time, government investigations revealed serious safety and environmental management problems in the nuclear weapons production complex. These developments generated stronger public scrutiny of DOE''s nuclear weapon activities than had been the case throughout the Cold War. Both the agency''s management of its past activities and its appropriate future mission became highly contentious issues.

As policymakers, the news media, and the public learned more about the extent of environmental contamination and safety problems throughout the nuclear weapons production complex, secrecy and lack of oversight emerged as key factors. The response to reports of plant closings, safety code violations, and radiation leaks was summarized by a Time cover story headlined, "''They Lied to Us'': Unsafe, Aging U.S. Weapons Plants are Stirring Fear and Disillusion."13 Impacted communities and environmental organizations demanded greater access to information on DOE''s weapon production activities, in order to assess the full scale of the damage that this work had generated during the previous decades.

At the same time, the United States and the Soviet Union (succeeded by Russia) concluded several agreements on major nuclear arms reductions. In 1991, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev announced in short succession that they were ordering unilateral withdrawals of thousands of deployed tactical nuclear weapons. Next, Bush proposed significant cuts in strategic nuclear forces below the levels agreed to in the START I nuclear reduction treaty which was then awaiting ratification, from about 9,000 warheads down to 4,700. Russian President Yeltsin countered with a proposal in January 1992 to reduce strategic forces even lower, to 2,500 warheads on each side.14 Yeltsin''s proposal led to the START II treaty, signed in January 1993, under which the United States and Russia pledged to reduce their deployed strategic forces to between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads each.

In sum, both superpowers agreed within the space of a few years to make cuts of roughly 60 to 70 percent in their strategic nuclear forces, plus additional reductions in tactical nuclear forces. These steps generated a broad debate in the United States about the size and role of the post-Cold War nuclear arsenal. These questions bore directly on DOE''s future, since they determined what the department would be called on to do, how large a weapons complex would be needed to manage a smaller arsenal, and what level of resources DOE would need to meet new nuclear requirements as determined by the President and his advisors. This issue, too, led to growing demands on DOE to release information about its nuclear weapon activities. As it became increasingly unlikely that the superpowers would ever return to full-scale nuclear competition, the rationale for controlling information about U.S. nuclear weapons was greatly weakened.

Both of these debates were overriding factors during debates in the early 1990s about what to do with the DOE nuclear weapons complex. The Bush and Clinton administrations faced two overriding policy imperatives:

addressing the complex''s severe contamination problems, and the resulting environmental damage; and
downsizing and reconfiguring the complex to meet post-Cold War nuclear requirements.

As befitted an issue with major implications for national security, environmental policy, and the Federal budget, many public and private experts weighed in with recommendations for meeting DOE''s challenges. Nuclear secrecy was a recurrent theme of these analyses, both as a causal factor in DOE''s problems and as a priority area for change to bring the agency into a new era. The assessments stressed the link between DOE''s secretive operating practices and its low level of public credibility.

For example, a review of post-Cold War nuclear policy issues conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (a public-interest organization that is one of the most prominent advocates for greater disclosure of nuclear information) argued:

One of the [DOE] culture''s central characteristics that must be challenged is excessive secrecy. For decades, DOE conducted its nuclear weapons design and production activities in almost total secrecy. Stringent controls remain necessary to prevent disclosure of weapon design and production secrets. But the secrecy which enveloped all aspects of DOE''s operations, including the public health and safety impact and financial management of its operations, is less appropriate and less wise. By restricting the flow of vital information to decision makers, excessive secrecy frequently produces bad decisions.15

This view was not unique to advocacy groups. In a study of environmental issues throughout the nuclear weapons complex, Congress''s Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) asserted:

... significant changes in DOE''s practices are still necessary to develop credibility and public acceptance of its plans for waste management and environmental restoration. To achieve the needed changes, aggressive efforts are needed in the following areas: substituting independent, external regulation for DOE self-regulation wherever feasible; providing long-term, capable, independent oversight in matters for which DOE continues to retain primary responsibility; making information openly available and easily accessible to the public; and promoting active and continuous public involvement -- at the National, State, regional, and local levels -- in decisions about waste management and environmental restoration objectives, priorities, and activities.16

A task force created by Energy Secretary James Watkins during the Bush administration to examine how DOE could increase public trust and confidence in its programs to manage civilian radioactive waste noted the lasting impact of DOE''s Cold War operating practices:

One of former Secretary Watkins'' first pronouncements after taking over stewardship at DOE was a candid "State of the Department" assessment. He acknowledged the numerous lapses in its past practices at the weapons complex including inattention to the environmental implications of its activities, excessive secrecy about releasing health and safety data, dissembling about the effects of above-ground nuclear weapons tests, and an inadequate record in consulting with many who were affected by policy choices. Those prior deficiencies stemmed largely from the fact that the Department played a major role in the national security arena. A war mentality naturally arose and served to justify actions that, in retrospect, appear unfortunate.17

When President-Elect Bill Clinton announced his selection of Hazel O''Leary as Secretary of Energy in late 1992, he acknowledged the challenge of leading DOE. Clinton stated that O''Leary understood that the agency''s biggest problem was that it held "very little credibility out here in the heartland. Ask any governor of either party, and he or she will probably be able to cite some example when ... the states felt they weren''t being treated in an up-front, open and reasonable manner."18

The Openness Initiative

Secretary O''Leary took office in 1993 as part of an administration with an oft-claimed commitment to shrinking the Federal government and making it more responsive to the public. She quickly recognized that despite some tentative steps by her predecessor, Watkins, to increase public trust in DOE (such as chartering the study cited above on DOE''s handling of civilian nuclear waste), the agency''s credibility was near zero.

In response, O''Leary began the difficult process of loosening DOE''s tight control over nuclear-related information, which she synthesized into an Openness Initiative. Major elements of this effort during O''Leary''s tenure (1993-1997) included:

Holding press conferences in 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1997 to release previously classified information on issues including unannounced nuclear tests; plutonium and highly enriched uranium inventories; and radiation experiments on human subjects.
Requesting guidance on declassification from the National Academy of Sciences, and chartering a broad review of DOE''s classification policies and procedures.
Changing DOE''s Office of Classification to the Office of Declassification, and accelerating document declassification.
Developing a regulation that outlines criteria for DOE classification and declassification decisions, and requires the department to be able to justify these determinations publicly.
Creating an Openness Advisory Panel to advise the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.

Many of these measures built on work by others. As noted above, many forces were pressing to open up the nuclear weapons complex to greater scrutiny. As early as 1985, a Reagan-era task force had recommended a reassessment of classification policy, pointing out that "one of the national security responsibilities of DOE leadership is to make available sufficient information to allow informed public debate on nuclear weapon issues."19 A review of classification issues conducted under Watkins had recommended carrying out a broad reassessment of policies for classifying all nuclear weapon-related information.

O''Leary raised openness to a higher level of urgency than it had previously received from DOE leaders, and linked it to broader changes in the agency''s operating practices. In her December 1993 press conference, she announced that DOE intended "to lift the veil of Cold War secrecy" that had surrounded much of its work. By January 1997, DOE materials stated that openness was "The Way to Do Business."

The Openness Initiative moved forward within the context of a broader government-wide effort to update U.S. secrecy policy. In 1995, President Clinton issued Executive Order No. 12958, which requires Federal agencies to automatically declassify certain categories of information that formerly had been classified indefinitely. In the same year, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that recommended steps to redirect the DOE classification process and minimize areas of classification.20 And in 1997, a commission chaired by Senator Daniel Moynihan (D-NY) released a report on its two-year review of government secrecy issues, calling for sweeping changes to limit and rationalize classification and to promote declassification.21

The scale of O''Leary''s mission was massive. DOE''s records, including those inherited from its predecessors, totaled about 6.75 billion pages. (For perspective, a stack of one million pages would reach to the top of the Washington Monument.) Only about five percent of this material was classified, but DOE had scant knowledge of the contents of many of its unclassified records. About fifteen percent of DOE records were held at agency headquarters and field offices. Another 65 percent were located at the national laboratories, and the remaining 20 percent were held at other facilities, such as contractor offices. There was (and continues to be) no physical center or line item in the agency budget for declassification and document-management activities.

In 1994-1996, DOE reviewed for declassification or confirmed to be unclassified more than 11 million pages of documents; during the same period, it generated roughly 2.6 million new classified pages. This ratio marked progress -- before 1993, DOE had classified more documents each year than it declassified. The department established OpenNet, an online database of bibliographic information, to make declassified records available to the public. OpenNet, which now contains more than 300,000 entries on declassified documents, can be accessed at http://apollo.osti.gov/html/osti/opennet/opennet1.html.

However, as noted above, DOE''s classified backlog totals about 280 million pages. Declassification is labor-intensive and requires special training. In 1995 the National Academy of Sciences calculated that it would take nearly 9,000 person-years of effort to review DOE''s backlog of classified documents.22 One goal of the Openness Initiative was to increase DOE''s declassification staff from 130 people to more than 300 over several years, but budget cuts intervened. Today DOE''s total declassification staff is only slightly larger than it was in 1993 -- about 50 Federal workers and 115 contract employees.23

Currently, every record that is declassified must be reviewed by two people. The Declassification Productivity Initiative, a research effort at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and George Washington University funded by DOE, is exploring technologies for scanning and electronic cataloguing of documents. This project aims to partly automate the declassification process so that one review can be done automatically, followed by a human review.

As previously noted, the current Executive Order on classification of National Security Information, E.O. 12958, requires automatic declassification of documents upon specific dates or the occurrence of specific events; documents more than 25 years old that have historical value must be declassified by the year 2000, unless they are excepted. DOE received a waiver from E.O. 12958''s automatic declassification requirement on the grounds that 80 to 90 percent of its records are classified under the Atomic Energy Act. In return, DOE agreed to review its older records of historical value for possible public release on an expedited basis. According to the Moynihan Commission, an estimated 230 million pages of DOE documents are more than 25 years old and of historical value. Of this quantity, 132 million pages do not fall under any allowable exemptions and are subject to review for declassification, but as of January 1997 DOE had only declassified 1.6 million pages.24

One reason for the slow pace is that DOE is finding that many of its records which contain NSI also contain RD or FRD, and therefore must be reviewed to ensure that nuclear weapons information is not released. Congress included a provision explicitly requiring DOE to conduct such reviews in the FY 1996 defense authorization bill.

The Moynihan Commission observed that many government agencies are implementing E.O. 12958''s requirements through costly line-by-line reviews, although this was not the intent of the Order. Instead, it called for greater use of "bulk" declassification, which employs survey techniques to assess the contents of groups of records and determine whether they contain material that would be damaging if released.25 Other advocates of openness have also advocated this approach. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, suggests another option: granting declassification authority to reviewers at the National Archives.26

In a September 1997 interim report, the DOE Openness Advisory Panel argued that enhancing openness was essential for DOE to achieve its policy goals, and commended the department for making "very significant strides." It also cautioned that much work remained, observing:

The challenge facing the Department today is to convert openness from a new initiative to a standard operating procedure. Moreover, the Department must find the means to sustain the effort at a time when Congress has reduced the funds for this important activity.27

The report identified three broad priorities:

(1) Refocusing the classification system. The panel recommended narrowing the scope for classification, while improving protection of truly sensitive records. It called for moving from a classification strategy based on "risk avoidance" -- seeking to control any document whose release might damage national security -- to a "risk management" approach that balanced the benefits of openness against the imperative of protecting sensitive information.

(2) Enhancing access to records. To promote public access to DOE''s unclassified records, the panel called for improving document controls and record management. It stressed the importance of using advanced technologies to facilitate this process, and highlighted an emerging problem: storage and access to electronic records, such as e-mail and databases. These sources often have great historical value, but the panel warned that the Federal government as a whole lacked a strategy to store, preserve, and retrieve electronic information.

(3) Changing the culture. The panel emphasized the importance of reversing DOE''s long-engrained mindset that agency activities should be hidden from public view. It called for establishing openness as a core departmental value by factoring it into performance reviews, work plans, and contracting activities. The report also called for more funding to support openness activities, and for agency leaders to champion the issue.

This month, DOE and the Defense Department expect to announce final agreement on steps to carry out the recommendations of the Fundamental Classification Policy Review (FCPR). This study, which involved some 50 technical and policy experts from the nuclear weapons complex and other agencies, called for more than 100 changes to DOE classification policy -- most notably, amending the Atomic Energy Act to eliminate the "born classified" principle. The FCPR also advocated restricting use of the UCNI category; strengthening controls on information whose release would promote nuclear proliferation or undercut national security; and declassifying scientific and technical information outside of those categories.28

At the same time, Secretary Pena is scheduled to release a new DOE regulation on classification (10 CFR 1045), which formalizes many of DOE''s current guidelines for handling information. The rule forbids unnecessary classification, or classification of information that deals solely with environment, safety and health issues. It spells out criteria for making classification and declassification decisions based on reasonable risk management, rather than total risk avoidance. The measure requires that RD documents be periodically reviewed for declassification, and that sensitive information should be segregated in classified appendices when possible so that the main portions of documents can be publicly released.

Both the FCPR and the new rule on classification departed from past DOE practice by requesting and responding to public input. The Moynihan Commission Report endorsed the FCPR as "a model mechanism other agencies could adopt, in which justifications for declassifying particular categories of information are publicly debated in a thoughtful way."29 The classification rule originated from a recommendation by public interest groups, who urged DOE to use the federal rulemaking process to change its policy (thus allowing notices and public comment) instead of simply issuing internal directives.

Less progress has been made on improving access to DOE''s non-classified records. Without adequate "finding aids" to locate specific documents, neither the public nor DOE itself can readily identify and locate information. The Openness Advisory Panel compared DOE''s existing document controls to a grocery store inventory, which "could reveal that the store has 10,000 cans of soup, but would not tell you where to find a specific can of Campbell''s soup."30 In a notable exception, DOE''s Office of Human Radiation Experiments has placed finding aids to records from a range of DOE sites on its web page and in public reading rooms, along with introductions that provide background and context for the materials. The OAP urged DOE to use this effort as a model for other agency records.

DOE has taken several steps to incorporate openness into its agency culture. The department''s new Strategic Plan, released in September 1997, establishes a "Corporate Management" goal (in addition to programmatic agency goals such as energy and national security), which emphasizes openness and public accountability.31 In October, DOE amended its classification contract clause to require contractors to review documents systematically for declassification.32

But change has been uneven throughout the nuclear complex. Some parts of DOE -- most notably the Office of Declassification -- have embraced the new priorities, but other sites have dragged their feet. According to one official involved in DOE''s efforts to locate and make available records on human radiation experiments, several sites resisted releasing finding aids for their record holdings to the public, or even to DOE headquarters.33 The strength of old habits was demonstrated in late September 1997, when DOE rejected a Congressional request to release the unedited version of Glenn Seaborg''s journal from his years as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971. Seaborg, a Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of plutonium, had his journal cleared when he left office, but DOE seized it in the 1980s and partly or fully excised roughly 1,000 sections. Sen. Moynihan has introduced legislation to release the full version of the journal, which Seaborg has been trying to obtain for years.34

Domestic and International Results

The Openness Initiative is still very much a work in progress, but enough time has passed to deliver some preliminary judgments on its effectiveness. DOE''s steps to improve openness have impacted on the department''s agenda at the national and international levels. In general, the results to date have been positive, and support the recommendations from groups such as the Openness Advisory Panel for further action.

DOE''s efforts have been praised by a wide range of actors with interests in greater access to nuclear weapon information. In its guide to the Openness Initiative, DOE cites a number of statements in support of the program. Notable examples include Dr. Edward Teller, a Manhattan Project veteran and one of the chief advocates of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s ("In principle, the process of declassification is, to my mind, the most important, successful undertaking of the present administration ..."), and Governor Mike Lowry of Washington state, home of the Hanford site, one of the most contaminated DOE weapons production facilities ("What is abundantly clear is that it is a new day at the U.S. Department of Energy. There is openness and commitment.")35 The Military Production Network, a coalition of grass-roots organizations representing communities near nuclear weapons production sites, gave DOE a grade of B+ in early 1997 for eliminating excessive secrecy.36 Many advocates of openness have stressed that the process is still at an early stage, and that changes must be institutionalized and receive adequate funding and political support.

The strongest dissenting view of the Openness Initiative has been voiced by conservative members of Congress. For example, Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) criticized DOE''s declassification efforts in a floor statement in early 1997:

Yet another alarming legacy of former Secretary O''Leary''s tenure could be the repercussions of her determination to declassify some of the Nation''s most closely held information. As a result, efforts by unfriendly nations -- and perhaps subnational groups -- bent on acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities have been afforded undesirable insights into designs, developmental experiences and vulnerabilities of U.S. nuclear devices.37

There is wide agreement that openness must be balanced against the imperative of protecting information that could facilitate development of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear weapons states or organizations. However, charges like Kyl''s that DOE has failed to strike this balance should be weighed against statements of support for the Openness Initiative from a number of U.S. nuclear weapons experts. In addition to the statement quoted above by Edward Teller, Hans Bethe (another Manhattan Project veteran), the late Carson Mark (former head of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory), and William Higgenbotham (a former specialist on nuclear safeguards at Brookhaven National Laboratory) have praised DOE''s actions without expressing reservations about negative security repercussions.38

Beyond these sample responses from DOE stakeholders, several government studies have recognized DOE''s openness activities. The Moynihan Commission observed that because of these efforts, an environmental organization that had sued the department in the past, and was preparing to do so again, had refrained from legal action to give the department time to respond to problems the group had identified.39 In congressional testimony on DOE''s role and mission, the General Accounting Office noted:

Recognizing the need to change, DOE has several efforts under way to strengthen its capacity to manage. For example ... decision-making processes have been opened up to the public in an attempt to further break down DOE''s long-standing culture of secrecy, which has historically shielded the Department from outside scrutiny ...40

At a minimum, then, DOE has been recognized for undertaking a fundamental change in its operating practices, and has been praised for its efforts by many of the constituents who were highly critical of the agency a decade ago. But the Openness Initiative is more than public relations. In addition to improving public trust and confidence, advocates of openness argue that it will pay off in terms of greater operational efficiency, budgetary savings, and national security benefits.

In its interim report, the Openness Advisory Panel made a strong case for the importance of pursuing and institutionalizing openness at DOE. The panel offered the following arguments for such a course:

DOE will not be able to execute its new, post-Cold War missions unless it regains public trust.

The imperatives of cleaning up and reconfiguring the nuclear weapons complex persist, but a third element has been added: maintaining a safe, secure and reliable nuclear arsenal without the ability to conduct nuclear tests. In the summer of 1996, President Clinton committed the United States to a policy of supporting a "zero-yield" comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT), which he signed later that fall, and transmitted to the Senate for ratification in late 1997. Although the treaty has not entered into force, the President has stated as national policy that the United States will not seek to conduct any nuclear tests of any yield, even a few pounds.

Since nuclear testing has been the main method for decades by which U.S. weapon designers verified the effectiveness of weapons in the stockpile, this decision triggered a major change in DOE''s mission. DOE has developed a "Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship and Management" (SBSS) program, through which it which plans to maintain a static nuclear arsenal (i.e., one without new weapon designs, which have traditionally been validated through nuclear tests) under a CTBT.41 However, the SBSS program has been criticized on a number of counts: critics charge that it is too costly (the program will cost roughly $4 billion per year over a decade); that many of the facilities called for by the program are unnecessary; and that it will enable the DOE nuclear weapons laboratories to maintain their capacity to design new nuclear weapons.42

DOE also faces other difficult and controversial missions, including managing nuclear materials, cleaning up the weapons production complex, and finding a suitable site for a permanent repository for civilian nuclear waste. These activities will involve moving nuclear materials through many communities nationwide. As the Openness Advisory Panel noted,

Given the high level of public concern and sensitivity about radioactive materials, and the continuing debate about nuclear weapons and nuclear power, these would be challenging tasks in the best of circumstances. The difficulty will be aggravated if the Department is suspected of hiding risks and of concealing past accidents. Openness -- and the enhanced credibility that can come from it -- is a necessary condition for success in these activities.43

DOE needs to promote openness to maintain its levels of scientific and technical excellence.

The Stockpile Stewardship program will require highly skilled scientific and technical personnel to carry out the complex research involved in assuring the safety and reliability of the nuclear arsenal without testing. However, the panel observed, the DOE laboratories are expanding their missions with the end of the Cold War into new fields that are not as highly restricted as nuclear weapons research, and young scientists may not be as willing to work under the secrecy constraints associated with DOE''s traditional military mission. As the National Academy of Sciences puts it, "The [Atomic Energy Act] authorizes sealing off an entire area of scientific and engineering knowledge from public scrutiny."44

In addition, stockpile stewardship work will overlap with civilian research on issues such as advanced computing and inertial confinement fusion. By reducing its reliance on classification, DOE can facilitate this shift to a new mix of classified and unclassified work, and improve the free flow of ideas among its various activities.

Openness helps protect sensitive national security information.

By reducing the burden of maintaining controls on information that is no longer sensitive, openness frees up resources to protect records that still must be restricted. It also legitimizes the classification system by ensuring that only truly significant information is classified.

Openness helps create informed citizens and policymakers.

A basic democratic principle holds that without a well-informed public, government cannot function: in James Madison''s words, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." Moreover, if oversight agencies and the relevant congressional committees do not have adequate information on DOE''s activities, they cannot act as effective checks and balances on agency policies.

Openness promotes efficiency and effective government.

By reducing secrecy, DOE can cut its annual costs for document security and other classification activities. Restrictions on information also limit productivity within DOE and between it and other government agencies. Poor document management increases the time required to locate DOE records in response to litigation, Freedom of Information Act requests, and other demands, driving up the cost of searches, and in some cases subjecting DOE to fines and penalties.

Openness activities can also reinforce DOE''s international goals in the area of arms control and nuclear nonproliferation. The United States has made increased transparency on nuclear weapons issues a goal in its arms control negotiations with Russia. Most recently, at their March 1997 summit, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to pursue a START III treaty that will include:

... measures relating to the transparency of strategic nuclear warhead inventories and the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads and any other jointly agreed technical and organizational measures, to promote the irreversibility of deep reductions including prevention of a rapid increase in the number of warheads.45

The United States is also working to persuade Russia to improve its controls over nuclear weapons and weapon-usable materials, but this work has been slowed by U.S. experts'' limited knowledge of the location, quantities, and characteristics of Russian holdings. The more willing the United States is to provide information on its nuclear stockpile and facilities, the greater the chances are that Russia may reciprocate.

Russia has taken one notable step in this direction in response to DOE''s openness activities. At a press conference on January 15, 1997, Energy Secretary O''Leary released a report detailing the types, purpose, and yields of all Russian nuclear tests and peaceful nuclear explosions from 1949 through 1990. O''Leary''s Russian counterpart, Viktor Mikhailov, provided the report in response to her challenge to release Soviet data comparable to the information she had declassified in earlier press conferences.46

Russia''s action is encouraging, but it is generally to soon to tell whether these arguments in favor of openness will be validates by DOE''s efforts. Even if this proves to be the case, openness is far from enough to achieve DOE''s ambitious goals. It is no substitute for competent management and soundly designed programs. For example, DOE has released a substantial amount of information about the stockpile stewardship program, and has held numerous public comment meetings in affected communities. However, a coalition of 39 environmental and arms control advocacy organizations has filed suit against DOE for failing to analyze adequately the environmental effects of, and reasonable alternatives to, the program. In the same action, the coalition is also seeking to force DOE to conduct a broad assessment of the environmental impact of the agency''s plan for cleaning up the nuclear weapons complex.47

Conclusion

Greater openness appears to be necessary but not sufficient for attaining the Department of Energy''s programmatic goals. There is a reasonably broad consensus among policymakers, nuclear experts, and interested stakeholders (including historians, environmental and arms control advocacy groups, and residents of impacted communities) that the Openness Initiative represents a change for the better from DOE''s traditional ways of doing business. Making information more accessible is only one aspect of recent efforts by the department to regain public trust and confidence: other initiatives include actions to improve DOE''s public consultation and to place DOE facilities under external regulation. It is important to assess what DOE has attempted, and what it has achieved, in these areas in the manner attempted here with respect to the Openness Initiative.

There is also more room for discussion of what kinds of nuclear information are still essential to protect in the post-Cold War environment. Several experts have pointed out that nations or groups seeking to develop nuclear weapons can benefit from technologies that a sophisticated country such as the United States considers primitive. Iraq did just that by employing a declassified U.S. process for enriching uranium in its clandestine nuclear weapons program.48 Maintaining the appropriate balance between openness and security in a world where nuclear technology and knowledge have become widely distributed is a major challenge.

Finally, DOE is not unique in experiencing much stronger public scrutiny over the past decade than it did in the past. All of the agencies that form and implement U.S. foreign and national security policy are under greater pressure to justify their budgets and plans now than was the case during the Cold War, when they supported a relatively cohesive national agenda with generally understood, albeit often controversial, objectives. In the past several years, it has become clear that agencies that cannot make a strong public case for their programs and build constituencies may face being dissolved or merged. The relationship between what agencies do and how they do it has probably never been more significant than in this time of declining trust in government, debate over appropriate U.S. foreign policy and security goals, and balanced-budget politics.

NOTES

1 Terrence R. Fehner and Jack M. Holl, Department of Energy 1977-1994: A Summary History (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, 1994), p. 14.

2 Natural Resources Defense Council, "Nuclear Data: Table of U.S. Nuclear Warheads," at http://www.nrdc.org/nrdcpro/nudb/datab9.html

3 U.S. General Accounting Office, Department of Energy: A Framework for Restructuring DOE and Its Missions, GAO/RCED-95-197 (Washington, DC, August 21, 1995), p. 10.

4 Letter from Secretary of Defense William J. Perry to Rep. Floyd D. Spence, March 29, 1995.
5 See U.S. General Accounting Office, id., note 2, pp. 24-26.

6 Executive Order 12958, Classified National Security Information, released by the White House on April 17, 1995.

7 U.S. Department of Energy, "Protecting the Nation''s Nuclear Information: An Overview of the Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data Classification System," (Germantown, MD: DOE Office of Declassification, November 1995).

8 For a discussion of the use and misuse of the UCNI category, see National Academy of Sciences, A Review of the Department of Energy Classification Policy and Practice (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1995), pp. 59-66; hereafter, NAS Report.

9 U.S. Department of Energy, Drawing Back the Curtain of Secrecy: Restricted Data Declassification Decisions, 1946 to the Present (RDD-3) (Germantown, MD: DOE Office of Declassification, January 1, 1996.

10 Information provided by DOE Office of Declassification.

Lecture for International Security Studies Section, International Studies Association