§9.17. Agency records exempt from public disclosure. — Inbound Citations

(a) For records required to be made available under 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(2), the NRC will delete information that is exempt under one or more of the exemptions cited in § 9.17. The amount of information deleted will be indicated on the released portion of the record, unless providing this information would harm an interest protected by the exemption(s) under which the matter has been withheld.

(b) Subject to the application of the FOIA exemptions and exclusion in 5 U.S.C. 552(b) and (c) and § 9.17, the NRC will make available for public inspection in an electronic format, including by posting on the NRC's website, https://www.nrc.gov, the following information:

(1) Final opinions, including concurring and dissenting opinions, and orders of the NRC issued as a result of adjudication of cases;

(2) Those statements of policy and interpretations that have been adopted by the NRC but are not published in the Federal Register;

(3) NRC rules and regulations;

(4) NRC manuals and instructions to NRC personnel that affect any member of the public; and

(1) On receipt of any request potentially involving information exempt from disclosure (e.g., nonpublic information), the NRC will determine whether the information is exempt from disclosure under § 9.17. Whenever a request involves a record containing information that may be exempt from disclosure, but the responsible office, as specified in paragraph (a) of this section, determines that, although exempt, the disclosure of the agency records will not be contrary to the public health and safety, will not be harmful to the common defense or security, and will not affect the rights of any person, the responsible office may authorize disclosure of the agency records. If the responsible office authorizes disclosure of the agency records, the head of the office will furnish the agency records to the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Officer, who will notify the requester of the determination in the manner provided in § 9.27.

(2) Whenever a request involves a record containing information that has been classified or may be appropriate for classification by another agency under any applicable executive order concerning the classification of records, the NRC will refer the responsibility for responding to the request regarding that information to the agency that classified the information, or that should consider the information for classification. Whenever an agency's record contains information that has been derivatively classified (e.g., when it contains information classified by another agency), the NRC will refer the responsibility for responding to that portion of the request to the agency that classified the underlying information.

(iii) In addition, an affidavit accompanying a withholding request based on paragraph (a)(4) of this section must contain a full statement of the reason for claiming the information should be withheld from public disclosure. This statement must address with specificity the considerations listed in paragraph (b)(4) of this section. In the case of an affidavit submitted by a company, the affidavit shall be executed by an officer or upper-level management official who has been specifically delegated the function of reviewing the information sought to be withheld and authorized to apply for its withholding on behalf of the company. The affidavit shall be executed by the owner of the information, even though the information sought to be withheld is submitted to the Commission by another person. The application and affidavit shall be submitted at the time of filing the information sought to be withheld. The information sought to be withheld shall be incorporated, as far as possible, into a separate document. The affiant must designate with appropriate markings information submitted in the affidavit as a trade secret, or confidential or privileged commercial or financial information within the meaning of § 9.17(a)(4) of this chapter, and such information shall be subject to disclosure only in accordance with the provisions of § 9.19 of this chapter.

(1) In the event that the NRC identifies records that may be subject to exclusion from the requirements of the FOIA pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552(c) or § 9.17(e), the NRC may confer with the Department of Justice, Office of Information Policy, to obtain approval to apply the exclusion.