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Home > Electronic Reading Room > FOIA and Privacy Act > Annual FOIA Reports > 2000
Annual Freedom of Information Act Report Fiscal Year 2000
- Basic Information Regarding Report
- Name, title, address, and telephone number of
person(s) to be contacted with questions about
the report.
Carol Ann Reed
Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Officer
Mail Stop T-6 D8
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Telephone: 301-415-7169 Fax: 301-415-5130
- Electronic address for report on the World Wide
Web
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/foia-privacy.html
- How to obtain a copy of the report in paper form.
Contact the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Public Document Room (PDR) located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first
floor), Rockville, MD 20852-2738, telephone 301-415-4737 or 1-800-397-4209, E-mail
PDR@NRC.GOV or by fax at 301-415-3548. The
mailing address is U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Public Document Room, Washington,
DC 20555-0001.
- Names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all individual agency components and offices that receive FOIA requests.
Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Officer
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mail Stop T-6 D8
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Telephone: 301-415-7169 Fax: 301-415-5130
E-mail: FOIA@NRC.GOV
- Brief description of agency's response-time ranges.
42% within 4 weeks
56% within 6 weeks
68% within 8 weeks
- Brief description of why some requests are not granted.
To protect privacy (48%)
To prevent compromise of a pending investigation or proceeding (13%)
To protect the agency's pre-decisional deliberative process or attorney-client privilege, or attorney work products (23%)
To protect proprietary information (6%).
- Definitions of Terms and Acronyms Used in the Report
- Agency-specific acronyms or other terms.
Not applicable.
- Basic terms, expressed in common terminology.
- FOIA/PA request -- Freedom of Information
Act/Privacy Act request. A FOIA request is
generally a request for access to records concerning
a third party, an organization, or a particular topic of
interest. A Privacy Act request is a request for
records concerning oneself; such requests are also
treated as FOIA requests. (All requests for access to
records, regardless of which law is cited by the
requester, are included in this report.)
- Initial Request -- a request to a federal agency for
access to records under the Freedom of Information
Act.
- Appeal -- a request to a federal agency asking that
it review at a higher administrative level a full denial
or partial denial of access to records under the
Freedom of Information Act, or any other FOIA
determination such as a matter pertaining to fees.
- Processed Request or Appeal -- a request or
appeal for which an agency has taken a final action
on the request or the appeal in all respects.
- Multi-track processing -- a system in which
simple requests requiring relatively minimal review
are placed in one processing track and more
voluminous and complex requests are placed in one
or more other tracks. Requests in each track are
processed on a first-in/first-out basis. A requester
who has an urgent need for records may request
expedited processing (see below).
- Expedited processing -- an agency will process a
FOIA request on an expedited basis when a
requester has shown an exceptional need or urgency
for the records which warrants prioritization of his
or her request over other requests that were made
earlier.
- Simple request -- a FOIA request that an agency
using multi-track processing places in its fastest
(nonexpedited) track based on the volume and/or
simplicity of records requested.
- Complex request -- a FOIA request that an agency
using multi-track processing places in a slower track
based on the volume and/or complexity of records
requested.
- Grant -- an agency decision to disclose all records
in full in response to a FOIA request.
- Partial grant -- an agency decision to disclose a
record in part in response to a FOIA request,
deleting information determined to be exempt under
one or more of the FOIA's exemptions; or a decision
to disclose some records in their entireties, but to
withhold others in whole or in part.
- Denial -- an agency decision not to release any
part of a record or records in response to a FOIA
request because all the information in the requested
records is determined by the agency to be exempt
under one or more of the FOIA's exemptions, or for
some procedural reason (such as because no record
is located in response to a FOIA request).
- Time Limits -- the time period in the Freedom of
Information Act for an agency to respond to a FOIA
request (ordinarily 20 working days from proper
receipt of a "perfected" FOIA request).
- "Perfected" request -- a FOIA request for records
which adequately describes the records sought,
which has been received by the FOIA office of the
agency or agency component in possession of the
records, and for which there is no remaining
question about the payment of applicable fees.
- Exemption 3 statute -- a separate federal statute
prohibiting the disclosure of a certain type of
information and authorizing its withholding under
FOIA subsection (b)(3).
- Median number -- the middle, not average,
number. For example, of 3, 7, and 14, the median
number is 7.
- Average number -- the number obtained by
dividing the sum of a group of numbers by the
quantity of numbers in the group. For example, of 3,
7, and 14, the average number is 8.
- Exemption 3 Statutes
- List of Exemption 3 statutes relied on by agency during current fiscal year.
- Brief description of type(s) of information withheld under each
statute.
41 U.S.C. 253b(m)(1)
Contractor Proposals
42 U.S.C. 2161-2165 Restricted or
Formerly Restricted Data
42 U.S.C. 2167 Unclassified
Safeguards Information
- Statement of whether a court has
upheld the use of each statute. If so,
then cite example.
No FOIA litigation involving the above
statutes.
- Initial FOIA/PA Access Requests
- Numbers of initial requests
- Number of requests pending as of end of preceding fiscal year (09/30/99)
------53
- Number of requests received during current fiscal year ------------------------376
- Number of requests processed during current fiscal year ----------------------377
- Number of requests pending as of end of current fiscal year (09/30/00) ---------52
- Disposition of initial requests.
- Number of total grants ------------------------171
- Number of partial grants ------------------------90
- Number of denials ------------------------19
- a. Number of times each FOIA exemption used (counting each exemption once per request)
(1) Exemption 1 -------------------------1
(2) Exemption 2 -------------------------8
(3) Exemption 3 -------------------------4
(4) Exemption 4 ------------------------11
(5) Exemption 5 ------------------------42
(6) Exemption 6 ------------------------40
(7) Exemption 7(A) ---------------------24
(8) Exemption 7(B)-----------------------0
(9) Exemption 7(C) ---------------------47
(10)Exemption 7(D) ----------------------2
(11)Exemption 7(E) ----------------------3
(12)Exemption 7(F)-----------------------0
(13)Exemption 8 -------------------------0
(14)Exemption 9 -------------------------0
- Other reasons for nondisclosure (total) -------------------------97
- no records --------------------------------------40
- referrals -----------------------------------------4
- requests withdrawn ------------------------------34
- fee-related reason -------------------------------13
- records not reasonably described -----------------2
- not a proper FOIA request for some other reason -0
- not an agency record ------------------------------0
- duplicate request ----------------------------------3
- other (neither confirm nor deny) -------------------1
- Appeals of Initial Denials of FOIA/PA Requests
- Number of appeals
- Number of appeals received during fiscal year -------------------14
- Number of appeals processed during fiscal year -----------------12
- Disposition of appeals.
- Number completely upheld -------------------3
- Number partially reversed --------------------2
- Number completely reversed -----------------3
- number of times each FOIA exemption used (counting each
exemption once per appeal)
(1) Exemption 1 -------------------0
(2) Exemption 2 -------------------0
(3) Exemption 3 -------------------1
(4) Exemption 4 -------------------0
(5) Exemption 5 -------------------3
(6) Exemption 6 -------------------1
(7) Exemption 7(A) ---------------1
(8) Exemption 7(B) ---------------0
(9) Exemption 7(C) ---------------1
(10) Exemption 7(D) -------------0
(11) Exemption 7(E) -------------0
(12) Exemption 7(F) --------------0
(13) Exemption 8 -----------------0
(14) Exemption 9 -----------------0
- Other reasons for nondisclosure (total) -------------------4
- no records -------------------------------------------------2
- referrals ----------------------------------------------------0
- requests withdrawn -------------------------------------0
- fee-related reason ---------------------------------------1
- records not reasonably described ---------------------0
- not a proper FOIA request for some other reason -1
- not an agency record ------------------------------------0
- duplicate request -----------------------------------------0
- other (specify) ---------------------------------------------0
- Compliance with Time Limits/Status of Pending Requests FY 2000 median day calculations are based on working days.
- Median processing time for requests processed during the year.
- Simple requests (Track A).
- number of requests processed -------------------364
- median number of days to process ----------------19
- Complex requests (Track B).
- number of requests processed --------------------10
- median number of days to process ---------------25.5
- Requests accorded expedited processing.
- number of requests processed -------------------3
- median number of days to process -------------16
- Status of pending requests.
- Number of requests pending as of end of current
fiscal year: -------------------52
- Track A --------------47
- Track B ---------------5
- Median number of days that such requests were pending as of that date:
- Track A -------------- 28
- Track B ---------------53
- Comparisons with Previous Year(s)
FY 1999 calculations are based on calendar days. FY 2000 calculations are based on working days.
|
FY 99 |
FY 00 |
% Change FY 99 to FY 00 |
A. Number of requests received |
379 |
376 |
0% |
B. Number of requests processed |
382 |
377 |
-1% |
C. Median number of days requests were pending as of end of fiscal year |
48 |
28 |
-42% |
D. Other statistics significant to agency |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
E. Other agency efforts to improve timeliness of FOIA performance and to make records available to the public: |
List of FOIA requests by subject that were completed during the year placed on the FOIA Homepage of the NRC Web site. |
Training on the FOIA process was provided to various staff offices with emphasis placed on specific office needs. |
Several internal agency service levels were developed to enhance the agency's
processing timeliness. Monthly reports showing the status of open cases are
provided to offices in an effort to heighten management awareness of pending
cases. |
In addition to providing general public access to material released under the
FOIA, in FY 00 the NRC placed over 60,000 of its official agency records in its
Agencywide Documents Acess and Management System (ADAMS). These documents are available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of
ADAMS. Adams is accessible from the NRC web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/ (the Public Electronic Reading Room). This extensive voluntary release program has resulted in more than 2.5 million documents being made publicly available either in paper, microfiche or electronically. |
- Costs/FOIA Staffing
- Staffing levels.
- Number of full-time FOIA personnel --------------------------------------------------------------8
- Number of personnel with part-time or occasional FOIA duties (in total work-years) --6
- Total number of personnel (in work-years) ---------------------------------------------------14
- Total costs (including staff and all resources).
- FOIA processing (including appeals) -------------$ 1,381,965
- Litigation-related activities (estimated) -------------$ 11,500
- Total costs ---------------------------------------------$ 1,393,465
- Comparison with previous year(s): FY 99 -------$ 1,362,159---+2.3%
- Statement of additional resources needed for FOIA compliance:
None. Current resources are adequate.
- Fees
- Total amount of fees collected by agency for processing
requests $23,059
- Percentage of total costs 1.7%
- FOIA Regulations (Including Fee Schedule)
10 CFR Part 9 (Internet location: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part009/)
Fee Schedule (2000)
Search and Review: |
|
SES/Commissioners (ES-4) |
$72.37/hr |
$ 1.21/min |
|
Professional (GG-13/6) |
$39.00/hr |
$ .65/min |
|
Clerical (GG-7/7) |
$18.90/hr |
$ .32/min |
Duplication: |
$.20 per page |
Minimum fee: |
$20
(No fee will be charged unless total fee is equal to or greater than $20) |
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