The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has revoked a three-year-old secrecy policy and plans to release documents from two nuclear fuel processing plants in response to congressional demands. This about-face was precipitated by a congressional inquiry into a uranium leak kept secret from the public for more than a year.

An Aug. 31 memorandum directed the release of "Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards Information" (SUNSI) documents from the nuclear fuel facilities Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) in Tennessee and BWX Technologies (BWXT) in Virginia.

The March 2006 spill of nine gallons of highly enriched uranium found pooling near an elevator shaft at NFS prompted immediate action. Closing the factory for seven months, NRC completed an investigation resulting in a licensing change legally subject to a public review. The required notification never became public, however, when all documents relating to the affair were classified as Official Use Only (OUO). This information lockdown resulted from an August 2004 policy, also stamped OUO, in which all documents regarding the two plants were automatically to be considered secret. Congress learned of the spill in April from a report on "abnormal occurrences" and demanded more information. The House Energy and Commerce Committee called upon NRC to justify its broad secrecy and to fine-tune its policy distinguishing between information truly security sensitive and publicly releasable information. The Aug. 31 memorandum is part of NRC's response.

The OUO designation is one of the sensitive but unclassified (SBU) categories increasingly used by the government to justify concealing information without clear explanation or justification. OMB Watch and numerous other public interest groups advocating for transparency in government have consistently decried such broad information controls as vulnerable to overuse.

NRC's new policy, which should release nearly 2,000 documents before March 2008, appears to be a good faith effort to balance security concerns with public accountability and disclosure. Whether it will serve as an example for NRC and other agencies how to shift away from the post-9/11 secrecy obsessed policies remains unclear. The memo does not change the policies for nuclear reactors and ultimately impacts only two facilities.

NRC held two public meetings in Erwin, TN, to discuss the NFS incident, providing safety assurances and unveiling a new website for public education purposes. The agency intends to continue monitoring NFS beyond the core inspection program.