Documents / Official release
This Clinton Presidential Library file of White House and National Security Council records from January 1996 concerns President Clinton's report to Congress under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. It contains NSC routing sheets, memoranda from James Baker, Anthony Lake, Patrick Griffin and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and letters to Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate President Albert Gore. The letters give notice of Presidential Determination 95-45 of September 29, 1995. That determination exempted the Air Force operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, from waste laws that would require disclosure of classified information.
Dear Mr. Speaker and Mr. President: Honorable Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House U. S. House of Representatives Washington, D. C. 20515 Consistent with section 6001(a) of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) (the “Act”), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 6961(a), which requires that I “report each January to the Congress all exemptions from the requirements of this section granted during the preceding calendar year, together with [my] reason for granting each such exemption,” I notify you that on September 29, 1995,1 issued Presidential Determination 95-45 (copy attached) and thereby exercised the authority to grant certain exemptions under section 6001(a) of the Act. Presidential Determination No 95-45 exempted the United States Air Force’s operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, from any Federal, State, interstate, or local hazardous or solid waste laws that might require the disclosure of classified information concerning that operating location to unauthorized persons. Information concerning activities at the operating location near Groom Lake has been properly determined to be classified, and its disclosure would be harmful to national security. Continued protection of this information is therefore in the paramount interest of the United States. Honorable Albert Gore, Jr. President U. S. Senate Washington, D. C. 20515 The Determination was not intended to imply that in the absence of a Presidential exemption RCRA or any other provision of law permits or requires the disclosure of classified information to unauthorized persons, but rather to eliminate any potential uncertainty arising from a decision in pending litigation, Kasza v. Browner (D. Nev. CV-S-94-795- PMP). The Determination also was not intended to limit the applicability or enforcement of any requirement of law applicable to the Air Force’s operating location near Groom Lake except those provisions, if any, that would require the disclosure of classified information.
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 16 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.