Atomic Safety and Licensing Board; Department of Energy (High Level Waste Repository: Pre-Application Matters); First Case Management Order (Regarding Preparation of Privilege Logs), 4154-4157 [05-1575]
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 18 / Friday, January 28, 2005 / Notices
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[FR Doc. 05–1546 Filed 1–27–05; 8:45 am]
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In accordance with the Federal
Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92–
463, as amended), the National Science
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Atomic Safety and Licensing Board;
Department of Energy (High Level
Waste Repository: Pre-Application
Matters); First Case Management
Order (Regarding Preparation of
Privilege Logs)
January 24, 2005.
Before Administrative Judges: Thomas S.
Moore, Chairman, Alex S. Karlin and Alan S.
Rosenthal
The purpose of this order is to
promote good management and
efficiency in the resolution of
documentary privilege disputes during
the pre-license application phase of the
expected application by the United
States Department of Energy (DOE) for
a license to construct a repository for
high-level radioactive waste (HLW) at
Yucca Mountain, Nevada. DOE, the NRC
Staff, the State of Nevada (State), other
potential parties, interested Indian
Tribes, and interested units of local
government (collectively Potential
Participants) are directed to submit their
responses to this order within the times
specified below.
I. Background
On August 31, 2004, this Board
granted the motion of the State to strike
DOE certification regarding its
production of documentary material on
the grounds, inter alia, that the gaps in
its document production, and the
incompleteness of DOE’s review of the
documents for claims of privilege,
showed that DOE had not made all
documentary material available as
required by 10 CFR 2.1003(a). LBP–04–
20, 60 NRC 300 (2004). In that decision,
we noted that DOE had claimed
approximately one million of its
documents were entitled to some form
of privilege and yet had not completed
its privilege review for several hundred
thousand of these documents. 60 NRC at
316, 318. Underscoring the magnitude
of the issue, counsel for the State
indicated that, given DOE’s numerous
claims of privilege, ‘‘we’re going to be
[before the Board] thousands of times
asking for documents.’’ 60 NRC at 328
n.47. Although our ruling of August 31,
2004 temporarily postponed such
privilege disputes, once DOE re-submits
and re-certifies its documents, the
controversies will begin anew.
Even assuming that DOE’s pending
document production is of the highest
quality, it is now clear that thousands of
documents in this proceeding (whether
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 18 / Friday, January 28, 2005 / Notices
from DOE or other participants) will be
subject to various claims of privilege
and that hundreds, if not thousands, of
these claims will be disputed. This
threatens to delay the proceeding. But,
as we noted in August, ‘‘a full and fair
6-month document discovery period,
where all of DOE’s documents are to be
available to the potential parties and the
public, is a necessary precondition to
the development of well articulated
contentions and to the Commission’s
ability to meet the statutory mandate to
issue a final decision within three
years.’’ 60 NRC at 315. Mindful of the
enormous task that looms before us, it
is incumbent on this Board to develop
procedures to manage and to resolve
efficiently a very large number of
privilege disputes.
II. Regulatory Structure
Development of an efficient plan for
managing the privilege disputes in this
proceeding first requires an
understanding of the scope of the types
of privilege claims that are available,
and of the existing regulatory and
technical structure.
A. Scope of Available Privilege Claims
As we explained in our August
decision, the regulations applicable to
the Yucca Mountain proceeding, 10 CFR
Part 2, Subpart J, require that DOE and
other Potential Participants make ‘‘all
documentary material’’ available. 10
CFR 2.1003(a)(1); see generally 60 NRC
at 311. Documents must be produced
electronically and will be placed on the
NRC Licensing Support Network (LSN).
The full text and an ‘‘electronic
bibliographic header’’ (Header) is
required for all documents except for
documents ‘‘(i) for which a claim of
privilege is asserted; (ii) which
constitutes confidential financial or
commercial information; or (iii) which
constitute safeguards information,’’
where only a Header is required. 10 CFR
2.1003(a)(4)(i)–(iii) (collectively
‘‘privileges’’ or ‘‘privileged
documents’’).1
The scope of the privileges available
under 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(4)(i) is
addressed in 10 CFR 2.1006(a), that
states:
[T]he traditional discovery privileges
recognized in NRC adjudicatory proceedings
and the exceptions from disclosure in § 2.390
may be asserted by potential parties,
interested States, local governmental bodies,
Federally-recognized Indian Tribes, and
parties. In addition to Federal agencies, the
deliberative process privilege may also be
1 A Header only is also acceptable for a document
that is not suitable for image or searchable full text.
10 CFR 2.1003(a)(3).
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asserted by States, local governmental bodies
and Federally-recognized Indian Tribes.
The regulation specifies that the Board
may, in appropriate circumstances,
deny claims of privilege, order the
document produced, and/or require
document production under an
appropriate protective order.
The exemptions from disclosure
specified in 10 CFR 2.390 are those
specified in the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. The regulation
sets forth the general rule that NRC must
make all records and documents
available to the public, and the nine
FOIA exemptions from disclosure.
These nine exemptions include
documents that (1) are properly
classified; (2) relate solely to internal
personnel rules and practices; (3) are
specifically exempted from disclosure
by a statute that leaves no discretion on
the issue; (4) are trade secrets or
privileged or confidential commercial or
financial information; (5) are
interagency or intra-agency memoranda
that would not be available by law to a
party other than in litigation;2 (6)
personnel and medical files, etc.3
In sum, the Subpart J regulations
establish numerous categories of
privileged documents with respect to
which the person producing them need
only provide a ‘‘Header.’’ These
categories include:
(1) The traditional discovery privileges
recognized in NRC proceedings (e.g., the
attorney work product privilege and the
attorney-client communication privilege);
(2) Confidential financial or commercial
information;
(3) Safeguards information;
(4) The deliberative process privilege
information (for governmental entities); and
(5) The nine FOIA exemptions of 10 CFR
2.390(a).
For each of these privileges, there are
specific elements or requirements that
must be met, and the elements vary
substantially depending on the
privilege. For example, a person
claiming that a document is protected
under the attorney-client
communication privilege generally must
establish that the document was (a) to
or from an attorney acting in his or her
capacity as an attorney; (b) written
primarily for the purpose of seeking or
FOIA exclusion is related to, but not
identical with, the deliberative process privilege.
3 There is some obvious overlap between the
three categories of documents excluded under 10
CFR 2.1003(a)(4)(i)–(iii) and the nine FOIA
exclusions. For example, section 2.1003(a)(4)(I)
excludes ‘‘confidential financial or commercial
information,’’ whereas section 2.390(a)(4) (FOIA
Exemption 4) excludes ‘‘trade secrets and
commercial or financial information obtained from
a person and privileged or confidential.’’ These are
not identical.
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providing legal advice; and (c) not
shared or disseminated to persons
outside of the attorney-client
relationship. On the other hand, in
order for a document to qualify under
the deliberative process privilege the
person claiming the privilege generally
needs to show that it is pre-decisional,
deliberative, and that an appropriately
senior agency official personally
reviewed and specifically identified the
documents as meeting the requirements
of the deliberative process privilege.4 In
order to determine whether a document
properly qualifies for a specific
privilege, the Board must be provided
with the facts showing that the
document satisfies all of the elements
applicable to the privilege claimed.
B. Content of Electronic Bibliographic
Headers
Turning to the prescribed content of
the Headers, they do not appear to
provide the parties or the Board with
the information necessary to determine
whether a given document satisfies the
elements applicable to the privilege
claimed for it. More fundamentally, the
regulations do not require that the
Header state that a withheld document
is claimed to be privileged, much less
the type of privilege claimed.5
Similarly, there is no requirement that
the person producing the document
provide the essential information that
would normally be required in a
litigation privilege log, i.e., the facts
relating to the document that represent
the elements of each privilege.
‘‘Bibliographic header’’ is defined as
‘‘the minimum series of descriptive
fields that a potential party, interested
governmental participant, or party must
submit with a document or other
material.’’ 10 CFR 2.1001. But no
regulation lists or mandates this
‘‘minimum series of descriptive fields’’
or their contents.
The LSN Administrator and the LSN
Advisory Review Panel, neither of
which have authority to issue binding
regulations, have attempted to fill this
gap by issuing guidance. Guidance
document ‘‘LSN Baselined Design
Requirements’’ specifies a
‘‘Recommended Participant
4 The descriptions of the elements of the attorneyclient communication privilege and the deliberative
process privilege are provided to illustrate their
differences, and are not to be construed as this
Board’s final interpretation of the elements of these
privileges.
5 A person may provide only a Header for a
document that (a) is not technically suitable for
electronic text display or (b) is claimed to be
privileged. See 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(3) and (4). But the
regulations and guidance do not require the person
to state which of the two reasons justify his or her
withholding of the document’s text.
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 18 / Friday, January 28, 2005 / Notices
Bibliographic Header Field Structure,’’
that suggests that each Header include
fields for items such as: Addressee
name, addressee organization, author
name, author organization, comments,
descriptors, document date, document
type, and title.6 The guidance describes
the ‘‘comments’’ field basically as a
catch-all field that can be used to
explain (a) whether the document was
claimed to be privileged and (b) if so,
why.7 The guidance document divides
the suggested fields into three
categories—mandatory, required if
available, and optional—and the
comments field is listed as ‘‘optional.’’
Although the recommended Header
fields help identify a document (name
of author, date, subject), they do not
provide the information necessary to
assess whether a document qualifies for
any given privilege. For example,
although the recommended Header
fields include the ‘‘addressee name’’
and the ‘‘author name,’’ they do not
provide the information necessary to
determine whether the document
qualifies for the attorney-client
communication privilege, i.e., (a)
whether the addressee or author was an
attorney, (b) whether the addressee and
author had an attorney-client
relationship, (c) whether the document
was written for purposes of requesting
or providing legal advice, and (d)
whether the document was shared or
disseminated to persons outside of the
attorney-client relationship.8
Alternatively, the Header fields provide
no information about whether the
document might qualify for the
deliberative process privilege, such as
was it pre-decisional and was it
deliberative.
In short, even if a person were
inclined to follow the optional
recommendations of the LSN
Administrator’s non-binding guidance,
the information in the Header fields
would be of little assistance in resolving
privilege disputes.
6 LSN Baselined Design Requirements (June 5,
2001), at 17, Table A, 22–23.
7 The guidance document states that the
‘‘comments’’ field should include ‘‘any information
not covered in other fields which the submitter or
indexer believes would be of help to identify or
retrieve the document, or to further explain any
field entry for the document * * * This field may
include summaries of documents that are
privileged.’’ Id. at 17.
8 Of course the Board, by inspecting the
document, might glean some or all of this
information. But this misses the point, which is that
it is literally impossible for this Board to review
individually 100,000 or a million documents to
attempt to determine what privilege, if any, the
document provider is claiming and whether the
document meets the necessary elements.
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C. Privilege Logs
Privilege logs are the tool employed to
manage and to resolve privilege claims.
For example, Rule 26(b)(1) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states
that a party ‘‘may obtain discovery
regarding any matter, not privileged,
that is relevant to the claim or defense
of any party’’ and further provides:
When a party withholds information
otherwise discoverable under these rules by
claiming that it is privileged or subject to
protection as trial preparation material, the
party shall make the claim expressly and
shall describe the nature of the documents,
communications, or things not produced or
disclosed in a manner that, without revealing
information itself privileged or protected,
will enable other parties to assess the
applicability of the privilege or protection.
Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 26(b)(5). The
‘‘privilege log’’ is the mechanism
whereby a party claiming the privilege
‘‘describes the nature of the documents
* * * in a manner that * * * will
enable other parties to assess the
applicability of the privilege or
protection.’’ The log is generally a chart,
listing each document for which a
privilege applies, and providing, in
different columns or fields, the
information necessary to assess whether
the privilege legitimately applies.
The Commission’s general rules of
practice for adjudicatory proceedings
support the use of privilege logs. The
rules governing Subpart G proceedings
are virtually identical to the above
quoted provisions of Rule 26. See 10
CFR 2.705(b)(1) and (4). Even in Subpart
L proceedings, where discovery is
limited to certain mandatory
disclosures, the rules require each party
to provide a privilege log—‘‘a list of
documents otherwise required to be
disclosed for which a claim of privilege
or protected status is being made,
together with sufficient information for
assessing the claim of privilege or
protected status of the documents.’’ 10
CFR 2.336(a)(3).
Although the regulations for the
Yucca Mountain HLW proceeding do
not incorporate 10 CFR 2.705 or 2.336
(see 10 CFR 2.1001), privilege logs
remain an authorized and necessary tool
under Subpart J. This Board, as the prelicense application presiding officer, is
required and authorized to resolve
privilege claims, see 10 CFR 2.1006(b)
and 2.1010(b), and possesses all the
general powers of a presiding officer,
including the power to manage the
process, rule on offers of proof, and
avoid delay. See 10 CFR 2.1010(e) and
2.319.
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Privilege logs will vary from case to
case.9 In many lawsuits, only a few
dozen, or perhaps a hundred documents
will be listed on a privilege log. In most
cases, only two privileges are asserted—
the attorney-client communication
privilege and the attorney work product
privilege. In these typical cases the
privilege logs will be short and
relatively simple. In other cases,
privilege logs are larger and more
complicated. For example, in the
tobacco claims litigation involving
massive numbers of documents, the
court issued a detailed case
management plan and procedure for
resolving discovery and privilege
disputes.10 Likewise, in FOIA cases,
where there are nine FOIA exemptions,
rather than the two traditional
privileges, the logs may be more
complicated because each type of FOIA
exemption has its own sub-elements.
See Vaugh v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (DC
Cir. 1973). Certainly in any case
involving a significant number of
privileged documents, it is critical to
establish at an early point the
information that the privilege log must
contain if there is to be any hope that
the case is to proceed fairly and
expeditiously.11
III. Order
Based on the foregoing, the Board
hereby orders DOE, the NRC Staff and
the State, together with any other
Potential Participants who may wish to
respond, to meet, either telephonically
or in person, within 20 days of the
publication of this order in the Federal
Register, for the purpose of developing
and agreeing on (a) a joint proposed
format for privilege logs and (b)
associated procedures for resolving
9 See Robert J. Nelson, The Importance of
Privilege Logs, The Practical Litigator, 27, 29 (Mar.
2000). See also Heavin v. Owens-Corning
Fiberglass, No. 02–2572–KHV–DJW, 2004 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 2265 *1, *24 (D. Kan. Feb. 3, 2004)
(describing what a privilege log should include ‘‘at
a minimum’’); Hill v. McHenry, No. 99–2026–CM,
2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6637 *1, *8 (D. Kan. Apr. 10,
2002) (listing requirements of satisfactory privilege
log).
10 United States v. Phillip Morris, Inc., Ninth Case
Management Order, 99–CV–2496, 2001 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 12603 *1 (D.D.C. Mar. 27, 2001).
11 As one commentator has noted that ‘‘it is in the
producing party’s interest to provide the absolute
minimum amount of information about the
document on the privilege log; downplay the
potential importance of the document, disguise the
weaknesses associated with the privilege or work
product claim; and ultimately to delay producing or
never produce the document.’’ Robert J. Nelson,
The Importance of Privilege Logs, The Practical
Litigator, 27, 29 (Mar. 2000). To the contrary, it is
in the public interest in this case, as well as the
interest of sound judicial management, that the
privilege logs contain all necessary information, so
that privilege disputes can be minimized and
promptly resolved.
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privilege disputes. The joint proposed
format for the privilege logs shall cover
all categories of privilege or protected
status claims available under Subpart J
and relevant to this proceeding. See
II.A.(1)–(5) above. For each category of
claimed privilege (e.g., attorney-client
communication, deliberative, Privacy
Act), the joint proposed format for that
particular privilege log should specify
and define the sub-elements of
information that must be provided in
order to enable other parties to assess
the applicability of the privilege or
protection without revealing the
privileged or protected information
itself.12
The jointly agreed procedures
associated with privilege claims and
disputes shall be based upon the
regulatory requirements and procedures
of Subpart J and provide any suggested
additional measures or procedures that
will avoid, or expedite the resolution of,
privilege disputes.13 For example, the
procedure may call for additional
conferences between the parties, or for
a mechanism for the redaction of small
amounts of ‘‘privileged information’’
from an otherwise unprivileged
document, in lieu of the blanket
exclusion of a document. To the
maximum extent possible, the privilege
logs and procedures should encourage
the prompt resolution of privilege
disputes by the parties themselves. The
proposed procedures should distinguish
between those privileges that are
absolute, and those that are qualified.
The proposed procedures shall
maximize the effective use of the LSN.
Not later than 40 days after the
publication of this order in the Federal
Register, DOE, the NRC Staff, and the
State shall submit a jointly-agreed
proposed case management order to the
Board that establishes a proposed format
for a privilege log and specifies privilege
claim related procedures for this
proceeding. They shall allow any other
Potential Participant the opportunity to
negotiate, to endorse and/or to join in
the joint submission. In addition, such
other Potential Participants may
12 For example, DOE and its litigation support
contractor, CACI Inc., are using computer software
to screen documents for potential claims of
privilege as well as teams of people reviewing and
evaluating documents for privilege. See 60 NRC at
318. This software, and DOE’s instructions to these
individuals, presumably identify the elements of
each category of privilege that DOE is claiming. The
NRC, which made its documents available on the
LSN on September 30, 2004, presumably developed
similar criteria and went through a similar process
in evaluating which documents qualified for a
privilege.
13 Appointment of a discovery master, authorized
under 10 CFR 2.1018(g), merely pushes the
discovery disputes to another level and, therefore,
would not appear to be a panacea.
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develop and submit their own joint or
individual alternative proposed case
management orders on the subject of
privilege log formats and procedures.
If DOE, the NRC Staff, and the State
are unable to agree upon a joint
proposed case management order
prescribing the format for a privilege log
and associated procedures, then, 50
days after the publication of this order
in the Federal Register, each of them,
and any other Potential Participant shall
submit separate proposed case
management orders on this subject. In
such case, 65 days after publication of
this order in the Federal Register, each
person or entity filing a proposed case
management order shall file a
supplement identifying and explaining
the material differences between its
proposed order and the other proposed
orders.
It is so ordered.
January 24, 2005, Rockville, Maryland.
The Pre-license Application Presiding
Officer Board.
Thomas S. Moore,
Chairman, Administrative Judge.
Alan S. Rosenthal,
Administrative Judge.
Alex S. Karlin,
Administrative Judge.
[FR Doc. 05–1575 Filed 1–27–05; 8:45 am]
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OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND
BUDGET
2004 List of Designated Federal
Entities and Federal Entities
Office of Management and
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ACTION: Notice.
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: As required by the Inspector
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Act), this notice provides a list of
Designated Federal Entities and Federal
Entities.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
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SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This
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Federal Entities which, under the IG
Act, the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) is required to publish
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4157
agencies that have ceased to exist or that
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Designated Federal Entities are required
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Federal Entities are defined, in
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(2) A designated Federal entity (as
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(3) The Executive Office of the
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(4) The Central Intelligence Agency;
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(6) Any entity in the judicial or
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activities in their organizations.
For the Designated Federal Entities
list for 2004, there is one addition (the
Broadcasting Board of Governors
succeeded the Board for International
Broadcasting) and one amendment (the
designated entity head of Amtrak was
changed to the Chairperson who is the
chief policymaking officer), for a total of
two changes to the 2003 list. For the
Federal Entities list for 2004, there are
four additions (the Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency for the
District of Columbia, the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, the U.S.
Interagency Council on Homelessness,
and the White House Commission on
the National Moment of Remembrance)
and three deletions (the Commission on
E:\FR\FM\28JAN1.SGM
28JAN1
Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 18 (Friday, January 28, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4154-4157]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-1575]
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket No. PAPO-00, ASLBP No. 04-829-01-PAPO NEV-01]
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board; Department of Energy (High
Level Waste Repository: Pre-Application Matters); First Case Management
Order (Regarding Preparation of Privilege Logs)
January 24, 2005.
Before Administrative Judges: Thomas S. Moore, Chairman, Alex S.
Karlin and Alan S. Rosenthal
The purpose of this order is to promote good management and
efficiency in the resolution of documentary privilege disputes during
the pre-license application phase of the expected application by the
United States Department of Energy (DOE) for a license to construct a
repository for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. DOE, the NRC Staff, the State of Nevada (State), other
potential parties, interested Indian Tribes, and interested units of
local government (collectively Potential Participants) are directed to
submit their responses to this order within the times specified below.
I. Background
On August 31, 2004, this Board granted the motion of the State to
strike DOE certification regarding its production of documentary
material on the grounds, inter alia, that the gaps in its document
production, and the incompleteness of DOE's review of the documents for
claims of privilege, showed that DOE had not made all documentary
material available as required by 10 CFR 2.1003(a). LBP-04-20, 60 NRC
300 (2004). In that decision, we noted that DOE had claimed
approximately one million of its documents were entitled to some form
of privilege and yet had not completed its privilege review for several
hundred thousand of these documents. 60 NRC at 316, 318. Underscoring
the magnitude of the issue, counsel for the State indicated that, given
DOE's numerous claims of privilege, ``we're going to be [before the
Board] thousands of times asking for documents.'' 60 NRC at 328 n.47.
Although our ruling of August 31, 2004 temporarily postponed such
privilege disputes, once DOE re-submits and re-certifies its documents,
the controversies will begin anew.
Even assuming that DOE's pending document production is of the
highest quality, it is now clear that thousands of documents in this
proceeding (whether
[[Page 4155]]
from DOE or other participants) will be subject to various claims of
privilege and that hundreds, if not thousands, of these claims will be
disputed. This threatens to delay the proceeding. But, as we noted in
August, ``a full and fair 6-month document discovery period, where all
of DOE's documents are to be available to the potential parties and the
public, is a necessary precondition to the development of well
articulated contentions and to the Commission's ability to meet the
statutory mandate to issue a final decision within three years.'' 60
NRC at 315. Mindful of the enormous task that looms before us, it is
incumbent on this Board to develop procedures to manage and to resolve
efficiently a very large number of privilege disputes.
II. Regulatory Structure
Development of an efficient plan for managing the privilege
disputes in this proceeding first requires an understanding of the
scope of the types of privilege claims that are available, and of the
existing regulatory and technical structure.
A. Scope of Available Privilege Claims
As we explained in our August decision, the regulations applicable
to the Yucca Mountain proceeding, 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart J, require
that DOE and other Potential Participants make ``all documentary
material'' available. 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(1); see generally 60 NRC at 311.
Documents must be produced electronically and will be placed on the NRC
Licensing Support Network (LSN). The full text and an ``electronic
bibliographic header'' (Header) is required for all documents except
for documents ``(i) for which a claim of privilege is asserted; (ii)
which constitutes confidential financial or commercial information; or
(iii) which constitute safeguards information,'' where only a Header is
required. 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(4)(i)-(iii) (collectively ``privileges'' or
``privileged documents'').\1\
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\1\ A Header only is also acceptable for a document that is not
suitable for image or searchable full text. 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(3).
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The scope of the privileges available under 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(4)(i)
is addressed in 10 CFR 2.1006(a), that states:
[T]he traditional discovery privileges recognized in NRC
adjudicatory proceedings and the exceptions from disclosure in Sec.
2.390 may be asserted by potential parties, interested States, local
governmental bodies, Federally-recognized Indian Tribes, and
parties. In addition to Federal agencies, the deliberative process
privilege may also be asserted by States, local governmental bodies
and Federally-recognized Indian Tribes.
The regulation specifies that the Board may, in appropriate
circumstances, deny claims of privilege, order the document produced,
and/or require document production under an appropriate protective
order.
The exemptions from disclosure specified in 10 CFR 2.390 are those
specified in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. The
regulation sets forth the general rule that NRC must make all records
and documents available to the public, and the nine FOIA exemptions
from disclosure. These nine exemptions include documents that (1) are
properly classified; (2) relate solely to internal personnel rules and
practices; (3) are specifically exempted from disclosure by a statute
that leaves no discretion on the issue; (4) are trade secrets or
privileged or confidential commercial or financial information; (5) are
interagency or intra-agency memoranda that would not be available by
law to a party other than in litigation;\2\ (6) personnel and medical
files, etc.\3\
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\2\ This FOIA exclusion is related to, but not identical with,
the deliberative process privilege.
\3\ There is some obvious overlap between the three categories
of documents excluded under 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(4)(i)-(iii) and the
nine FOIA exclusions. For example, section 2.1003(a)(4)(I) excludes
``confidential financial or commercial information,'' whereas
section 2.390(a)(4) (FOIA Exemption 4) excludes ``trade secrets and
commercial or financial information obtained from a person and
privileged or confidential.'' These are not identical.
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In sum, the Subpart J regulations establish numerous categories of
privileged documents with respect to which the person producing them
need only provide a ``Header.'' These categories include:
(1) The traditional discovery privileges recognized in NRC
proceedings (e.g., the attorney work product privilege and the
attorney-client communication privilege);
(2) Confidential financial or commercial information;
(3) Safeguards information;
(4) The deliberative process privilege information (for
governmental entities); and
(5) The nine FOIA exemptions of 10 CFR 2.390(a).
For each of these privileges, there are specific elements or
requirements that must be met, and the elements vary substantially
depending on the privilege. For example, a person claiming that a
document is protected under the attorney-client communication privilege
generally must establish that the document was (a) to or from an
attorney acting in his or her capacity as an attorney; (b) written
primarily for the purpose of seeking or providing legal advice; and (c)
not shared or disseminated to persons outside of the attorney-client
relationship. On the other hand, in order for a document to qualify
under the deliberative process privilege the person claiming the
privilege generally needs to show that it is pre-decisional,
deliberative, and that an appropriately senior agency official
personally reviewed and specifically identified the documents as
meeting the requirements of the deliberative process privilege.\4\ In
order to determine whether a document properly qualifies for a specific
privilege, the Board must be provided with the facts showing that the
document satisfies all of the elements applicable to the privilege
claimed.
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\4\ The descriptions of the elements of the attorney-client
communication privilege and the deliberative process privilege are
provided to illustrate their differences, and are not to be
construed as this Board's final interpretation of the elements of
these privileges.
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B. Content of Electronic Bibliographic Headers
Turning to the prescribed content of the Headers, they do not
appear to provide the parties or the Board with the information
necessary to determine whether a given document satisfies the elements
applicable to the privilege claimed for it. More fundamentally, the
regulations do not require that the Header state that a withheld
document is claimed to be privileged, much less the type of privilege
claimed.\5\ Similarly, there is no requirement that the person
producing the document provide the essential information that would
normally be required in a litigation privilege log, i.e., the facts
relating to the document that represent the elements of each privilege.
``Bibliographic header'' is defined as ``the minimum series of
descriptive fields that a potential party, interested governmental
participant, or party must submit with a document or other material.''
10 CFR 2.1001. But no regulation lists or mandates this ``minimum
series of descriptive fields'' or their contents.
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\5\ A person may provide only a Header for a document that (a)
is not technically suitable for electronic text display or (b) is
claimed to be privileged. See 10 CFR 2.1003(a)(3) and (4). But the
regulations and guidance do not require the person to state which of
the two reasons justify his or her withholding of the document's
text.
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The LSN Administrator and the LSN Advisory Review Panel, neither of
which have authority to issue binding regulations, have attempted to
fill this gap by issuing guidance. Guidance document ``LSN Baselined
Design Requirements'' specifies a ``Recommended Participant
[[Page 4156]]
Bibliographic Header Field Structure,'' that suggests that each Header
include fields for items such as: Addressee name, addressee
organization, author name, author organization, comments, descriptors,
document date, document type, and title.\6\ The guidance describes the
``comments'' field basically as a catch-all field that can be used to
explain (a) whether the document was claimed to be privileged and (b)
if so, why.\7\ The guidance document divides the suggested fields into
three categories--mandatory, required if available, and optional--and
the comments field is listed as ``optional.''
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\6\ LSN Baselined Design Requirements (June 5, 2001), at 17,
Table A, 22-23.
\7\ The guidance document states that the ``comments'' field
should include ``any information not covered in other fields which
the submitter or indexer believes would be of help to identify or
retrieve the document, or to further explain any field entry for the
document * * * This field may include summaries of documents that
are privileged.'' Id. at 17.
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Although the recommended Header fields help identify a document
(name of author, date, subject), they do not provide the information
necessary to assess whether a document qualifies for any given
privilege. For example, although the recommended Header fields include
the ``addressee name'' and the ``author name,'' they do not provide the
information necessary to determine whether the document qualifies for
the attorney-client communication privilege, i.e., (a) whether the
addressee or author was an attorney, (b) whether the addressee and
author had an attorney-client relationship, (c) whether the document
was written for purposes of requesting or providing legal advice, and
(d) whether the document was shared or disseminated to persons outside
of the attorney-client relationship.\8\ Alternatively, the Header
fields provide no information about whether the document might qualify
for the deliberative process privilege, such as was it pre-decisional
and was it deliberative.
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\8\ Of course the Board, by inspecting the document, might glean
some or all of this information. But this misses the point, which is
that it is literally impossible for this Board to review
individually 100,000 or a million documents to attempt to determine
what privilege, if any, the document provider is claiming and
whether the document meets the necessary elements.
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In short, even if a person were inclined to follow the optional
recommendations of the LSN Administrator's non-binding guidance, the
information in the Header fields would be of little assistance in
resolving privilege disputes.
C. Privilege Logs
Privilege logs are the tool employed to manage and to resolve
privilege claims. For example, Rule 26(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure states that a party ``may obtain discovery regarding
any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the claim or defense of
any party'' and further provides:
When a party withholds information otherwise discoverable under
these rules by claiming that it is privileged or subject to
protection as trial preparation material, the party shall make the
claim expressly and shall describe the nature of the documents,
communications, or things not produced or disclosed in a manner
that, without revealing information itself privileged or protected,
will enable other parties to assess the applicability of the
privilege or protection.
Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 26(b)(5). The ``privilege log'' is the mechanism
whereby a party claiming the privilege ``describes the nature of the
documents * * * in a manner that * * * will enable other parties to
assess the applicability of the privilege or protection.'' The log is
generally a chart, listing each document for which a privilege applies,
and providing, in different columns or fields, the information
necessary to assess whether the privilege legitimately applies.
The Commission's general rules of practice for adjudicatory
proceedings support the use of privilege logs. The rules governing
Subpart G proceedings are virtually identical to the above quoted
provisions of Rule 26. See 10 CFR 2.705(b)(1) and (4). Even in Subpart
L proceedings, where discovery is limited to certain mandatory
disclosures, the rules require each party to provide a privilege log--
``a list of documents otherwise required to be disclosed for which a
claim of privilege or protected status is being made, together with
sufficient information for assessing the claim of privilege or
protected status of the documents.'' 10 CFR 2.336(a)(3).
Although the regulations for the Yucca Mountain HLW proceeding do
not incorporate 10 CFR 2.705 or 2.336 (see 10 CFR 2.1001), privilege
logs remain an authorized and necessary tool under Subpart J. This
Board, as the pre-license application presiding officer, is required
and authorized to resolve privilege claims, see 10 CFR 2.1006(b) and
2.1010(b), and possesses all the general powers of a presiding officer,
including the power to manage the process, rule on offers of proof, and
avoid delay. See 10 CFR 2.1010(e) and 2.319.
Privilege logs will vary from case to case.\9\ In many lawsuits,
only a few dozen, or perhaps a hundred documents will be listed on a
privilege log. In most cases, only two privileges are asserted--the
attorney-client communication privilege and the attorney work product
privilege. In these typical cases the privilege logs will be short and
relatively simple. In other cases, privilege logs are larger and more
complicated. For example, in the tobacco claims litigation involving
massive numbers of documents, the court issued a detailed case
management plan and procedure for resolving discovery and privilege
disputes.\10\ Likewise, in FOIA cases, where there are nine FOIA
exemptions, rather than the two traditional privileges, the logs may be
more complicated because each type of FOIA exemption has its own sub-
elements. See Vaugh v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (DC Cir. 1973). Certainly in
any case involving a significant number of privileged documents, it is
critical to establish at an early point the information that the
privilege log must contain if there is to be any hope that the case is
to proceed fairly and expeditiously.\11\
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\9\ See Robert J. Nelson, The Importance of Privilege Logs, The
Practical Litigator, 27, 29 (Mar. 2000). See also Heavin v. Owens-
Corning Fiberglass, No. 02-2572-KHV-DJW, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2265
*1, *24 (D. Kan. Feb. 3, 2004) (describing what a privilege log
should include ``at a minimum''); Hill v. McHenry, No. 99-2026-CM,
2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6637 *1, *8 (D. Kan. Apr. 10, 2002) (listing
requirements of satisfactory privilege log).
\10\ United States v. Phillip Morris, Inc., Ninth Case
Management Order, 99-CV-2496, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12603 *1 (D.D.C.
Mar. 27, 2001).
\11\ As one commentator has noted that ``it is in the producing
party's interest to provide the absolute minimum amount of
information about the document on the privilege log; downplay the
potential importance of the document, disguise the weaknesses
associated with the privilege or work product claim; and ultimately
to delay producing or never produce the document.'' Robert J.
Nelson, The Importance of Privilege Logs, The Practical Litigator,
27, 29 (Mar. 2000). To the contrary, it is in the public interest in
this case, as well as the interest of sound judicial management,
that the privilege logs contain all necessary information, so that
privilege disputes can be minimized and promptly resolved.
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III. Order
Based on the foregoing, the Board hereby orders DOE, the NRC Staff
and the State, together with any other Potential Participants who may
wish to respond, to meet, either telephonically or in person, within 20
days of the publication of this order in the Federal Register, for the
purpose of developing and agreeing on (a) a joint proposed format for
privilege logs and (b) associated procedures for resolving
[[Page 4157]]
privilege disputes. The joint proposed format for the privilege logs
shall cover all categories of privilege or protected status claims
available under Subpart J and relevant to this proceeding. See
II.A.(1)-(5) above. For each category of claimed privilege (e.g.,
attorney-client communication, deliberative, Privacy Act), the joint
proposed format for that particular privilege log should specify and
define the sub-elements of information that must be provided in order
to enable other parties to assess the applicability of the privilege or
protection without revealing the privileged or protected information
itself.\12\
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\12\ For example, DOE and its litigation support contractor,
CACI Inc., are using computer software to screen documents for
potential claims of privilege as well as teams of people reviewing
and evaluating documents for privilege. See 60 NRC at 318. This
software, and DOE's instructions to these individuals, presumably
identify the elements of each category of privilege that DOE is
claiming. The NRC, which made its documents available on the LSN on
September 30, 2004, presumably developed similar criteria and went
through a similar process in evaluating which documents qualified
for a privilege.
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The jointly agreed procedures associated with privilege claims and
disputes shall be based upon the regulatory requirements and procedures
of Subpart J and provide any suggested additional measures or
procedures that will avoid, or expedite the resolution of, privilege
disputes.\13\ For example, the procedure may call for additional
conferences between the parties, or for a mechanism for the redaction
of small amounts of ``privileged information'' from an otherwise
unprivileged document, in lieu of the blanket exclusion of a document.
To the maximum extent possible, the privilege logs and procedures
should encourage the prompt resolution of privilege disputes by the
parties themselves. The proposed procedures should distinguish between
those privileges that are absolute, and those that are qualified. The
proposed procedures shall maximize the effective use of the LSN.
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\13\ Appointment of a discovery master, authorized under 10 CFR
2.1018(g), merely pushes the discovery disputes to another level
and, therefore, would not appear to be a panacea.
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Not later than 40 days after the publication of this order in the
Federal Register, DOE, the NRC Staff, and the State shall submit a
jointly-agreed proposed case management order to the Board that
establishes a proposed format for a privilege log and specifies
privilege claim related procedures for this proceeding. They shall
allow any other Potential Participant the opportunity to negotiate, to
endorse and/or to join in the joint submission. In addition, such other
Potential Participants may develop and submit their own joint or
individual alternative proposed case management orders on the subject
of privilege log formats and procedures.
If DOE, the NRC Staff, and the State are unable to agree upon a
joint proposed case management order prescribing the format for a
privilege log and associated procedures, then, 50 days after the
publication of this order in the Federal Register, each of them, and
any other Potential Participant shall submit separate proposed case
management orders on this subject. In such case, 65 days after
publication of this order in the Federal Register, each person or
entity filing a proposed case management order shall file a supplement
identifying and explaining the material differences between its
proposed order and the other proposed orders.
It is so ordered.
January 24, 2005, Rockville, Maryland.
The Pre-license Application Presiding Officer Board.
Thomas S. Moore,
Chairman, Administrative Judge.
Alan S. Rosenthal,
Administrative Judge.
Alex S. Karlin,
Administrative Judge.
[FR Doc. 05-1575 Filed 1-27-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-U