9507055: 7585721-20060527F-001-008-2023

.09/26/95 TUE 10:00 FAX 703 693 9355 121003SAF/GC
SEP 2 5 1995
MEMORANDUM FOR THE DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Qi?*
Plaintiffs in the Kasza case sought to compel EPA to inspect the operating location and to
obtain from the Air Force (or prepare itself) an inventory concerning the operating location and then
to make public the report of inspection and the inventory under the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA). In the second related suit against the Department of Defense, the Air Force,
and the National Security Advisor, plaintiffs have alleged that the Air Force violated RCRA at the
operating location, and they seek declaratory and injunctive relief and civil monetary penalties.
Although it is not the subject of either lawsuit or related to this request for a Presidential exemption,
plaintiffs’ counsel has also claimed (a) his clients have knowledge of criminal violations at the
operating location and (b) his clients suffered personal injury due to environmental violations. EPA
and the Justice Department are investigating the claims of criminal conduct.
Earlier this year, the government moved to dismiss the Kasza case as moot because EPA had
conducted the inspection and the Air Force had delivered the inventory to EPA. The report of the
inspection and the inventory are classified. The government has also sought dismissal of the second
suit based on the military and state secrets privilege; under a well-established line of precedent,
where as here the suit cannot be prosecuted or defended without disclosing classified information
that would cause serious harm to national security, it must be dismissed.
I recommend and request that you seek from the President an exemption from disclosure of
classified information concerning an Air Force operating location near Groom Lake in the Nellis
Range Complex in Nevada. This request is necessitated by a judicial decision in a lawsuit against
the Environmental Protection Agency, Kasza v. Browner. No. CV-S-94-795-PMP. Administrator
Browner concurs in this request, as does the Department of Justice Environment and Natural
Resources Division, which is defending EPA in the lawsuit.
The Kasza case is one of two citizen environmental suits pending in federal district court in
Nevada concerning the operating location near Groom Lake. The activities undertaken at the
operating location are crucial to national security. The nature of the activities requires that virtually
all information about the location be classified. Indeed, until recently the Air Force had never
publicly acknowledged that it had an operating location there; as of today, that is virtually the only
information about the location we have made public. To protect national security in the pending
litigation, I have made a formal claim of the military and state secrets privilege. My unclassified
declaration invoking the privilege is attached. My classified declaration, which provides detailed
information about the operating location and its national security significance, can be made available
to you on request and is available to the President through NSC staff.
SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE
WASHINGTON
SUBJECT: Request to Seek Presidential Exemption for Classified Information Concerning
the Air Force’s Operating Location Near Groom Lake, Nevada