Documents / Official release

9606505: 7585721-20060527F-001-013-2023

· 13 pages · text from the file's own layer

This file comes from the Clinton Presidential Library's National Security Council records. It holds Presidential Determination No. 96-54, dated September 1996, together with the memoranda that led to it. The determination renews for one year an exemption under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada. The exemption shields classified information from disclosure during the Kasza v. Browner and Frost v. Perry litigation, which was on appeal, but it does not waive environmental standards.

DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
2 5 SEP iggs
NJ
Attachment:
SECAF Memo
I note that EP A Administrator Browner and the Justice Department’s Environment and
Natural Resources Division concur in this recommendation.
On September 29, 1995, you issued an exemption under the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) protecting from disclosure classified information concerning an Air Force
operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada. By statute, the exemption is effective for one year,
unless renewed. The exemption was necessitated by a Federal district court ruling that held that
classified information could not be withheld from public disclosure under RCRA absent such an
exemption. That ruling is now being appealed. In the meantime, and for reasons addressed in the
attached memorandum from Secretary Widnall, I concur in her request and recommendation that
you renew the exemption to provide continued protection for the full one-year statutory period
while the matter is on appeal.
MEMORANDUM FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON
THRU: MR. LAKE
1O1O DEFENSE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, DC 20301-1010
SUBJECT: Classified Information Concerning the Air Force’s Operating Location Near Groom
Lake, Nevada
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 13 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.