Capitol Commentary

Bruce Craig, Director of the National Coalition for History

Bush Issues New Secrecy Executive Order

On 25 March 2003 President George W. Bush signed a thirty-one-page Executive Order "Further Amendment to Executive Order 12958, As Amended, Classified National Security Information" (EO 13292) replacing the soon-to-expire Clinton-era EO relating to the automatic declassification of federal government documents after twenty-five years.

The new EO retains the essential provision of the Clinton order--automatic declassification of federal agency records after twenty-five years--but with some notable caveats. In general, the government now has more discretion to keep information classified indefinitely, especially if it falls within a broad new definition of "national security." The EO makes it easier for government agencies to reclassify documents that have already been declassified, and it makes it easier for agencies to classify what is characterized "sensitive" material. There are new classification authorities including one for the vice president who previously did not have the power to classify documents, and one for the CIA to reject declassification rulings from an interagency panel. The EO also expands the list of exemptions of information from future automatic declassification: information that would "assist in development or use of weapons of mass destruction," reports such as "national security emergency preparedness plans," and information relating to "weapons systems." Also included in the automatic declassification exempted materials category is a class of information that would "impair relations between the United States and a foreign government," thereby creating a new "presumption of secrecy" category for information provided in confidence by a foreign government; this provision also was not present in the Clinton order. Finally, the order creates a three-year delay in requiring that all agencies comply with the Clinton EO twenty-five-year targeted declassification date.

All in all, according to Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, a private group that works to get government documents declassified, the Bush administration is sending "one more signal from on high to the bureaucracy to slow down, stall, withhold, stonewall . . . .making foreign government information presumptively classified drops us down to Uzbekistan's openness norms."

Not all reviewers of the new EO are so critical. Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, considers the EO as "a bullet dodged"--that "given that the Bush administration is the most secretive in recent decades, it is not as bad as it might have been. As deplorable as these steps are," he said, "they seem unlikely to have a major impact on disclosure policy." Archivists were generally pleased to see the generalized term "information" substituted for "records" in certain sections of the new EO.

Administration officials defended the new order and characterized it as an "institutionalization of automatic declassification...with appropriate modifications." J. William Leonard, director of the National Archives Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO)--the government oversight agency that is charged to implement the EO--noted, "From my perspective, this amendment does not represent a substantial change to the declassification process." A copy of the new order may be found at: <http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html>.

President Issues Executive Order Launching "Preserve America" Initiative

On 3 March 2003, President Bush signed an Executive Order (EO) entitled "Preserve America" stating that, "It is the policy of the federal government to provide leadership in preserving America's heritage by actively advancing the protection, enhancement, and contemporary use of the historic properties owned by the federal government, and by promoting intergovernmental cooperation and partnerships for the preservation and use of historic properties" <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030304-9.html>.

Executive Order 13287 was crafted with a number of objectives in mind. First, it provides a philosophical umbrella for federal agency historic preservation efforts. It reminds all agency heads of their ongoing historic preservation responsibilities under Sections 110 and 111 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and other federal preservation laws. To that end, the EO requires all federal agencies to examine their policies and procedures and to ensure that their actions "encourage, support, and foster public-private initiatives and investment in the use, reuse, and rehabilitation of historic properties to the extent that such support is not inconsistent with other provisions of law."

Rather than delegate historic preservation responsibilities to lower ranking officials in the federal bureaucracy, agency heads are directed to "designate a senior policy level official" who will have oversight responsibility for agency historic preservation programs. According to the EO, "This senior official shall be an assistant, deputy assistant secretary, or the equivalent. " To assist agencies in meeting the other requirements of the EO, the National Park Service, working in consultation with the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP), is to develop and to make available to agency heads education, training, and historic property awareness materials.

Second, the EO lays out the Bush administration's framework for improving stewardship, planning, and accountability in federal agency historic preservation programs. A central thrust of the EO mandates an assessment of the current use of all federal historic properties. When appropriate, the EO directs agencies to consider making such properties available to non-federal entities to advance local community and economic objectives, provided they are "consistent with agency missions." To this end, by September 2004, all federal agencies must have inventoried their historic properties and evaluated their potential for "community economic development," including such uses as heritage tourism and public-private partnerships. Agency findings are to be made to the Secretary of the Interior and to the Advisory Council. In these assessments, agencies must examine opportunities for enhanced "public benefit from, and access to Federally owned historic properties."

Third, the EO also seeks to promote historic preservation through heritage tourism. ACHP observers report that the current chair of the Advisory Council, John Nau III, considers heritage tourism to be a central component of any successful long-term effort to preserve surplus federal historic buildings. Thus, the EO directs agencies to work with the Advisory Council, state governments, Native American tribes, and local communities to promote the use of historic properties for heritage tourism purposes, thus insuring long-term "productive use" of such properties.

The Bush Budget for FY 2004: For History, It's Pretty Good News!

On 3 February 2003, President Bush delivered to Congress a $2.2 trillion federal budget for 2004. It includes both a record deficit of $307 billion and a record funding level for history-related programs--$100 million for the Department of Education's (DOE) "Teaching of Traditional American History" initiative and a $25 million increase in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) budget line to fund the "We the People" initiative. The president's proposal also allocates $289 million for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), with a disappointing level of just $5 million allocated for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Both the $100 million for the DOE history initiative and the $25 million increase for the NEH are in sharp contrast to what otherwise promises to be stark funding levels for most other domestic agencies. The president's budget squeezes most domestic programs in favor of funding homeland defense, the military, and a handful of showcase priorities including education, which would see a six percent rise.

Here are some agency and program highlights: The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) budget is pegged at $153 million which includes level-funding for the NEH traditional programs ($128 million) and a massive influx of $25 million in new funds for the "We the People" initiative. The initiative is designed "to promote a broad understanding of the ideas and events that have shaped our nation." To spearhead the implementation of the initiative, a "We the People" office will be established to coordinate diverse activities that cut across virtually every program activity within the NEH.

In an unexpected development, the Bush administration doubled last year's (FY 2003) budget request of $50 million for the DOE "Teaching of Traditional American History" initiative to $100 million. That is the budget figure that the initiative's champion Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) has advocated over the last three years. The program makes competitive grants to school districts to promote the teaching of "traditional" American history at the elementary and secondary school levels. The increase would double the number of available grants to 360 and "recognizes the need to create and expand efforts to raise the level of student knowledge in this core academic area in order to prepare future generations of students to become responsible citizens who vote and fully participate in our democratic institutions."

One disappointing figure is the $5 million recommendation for the NHPRC--the same funding level proposed by the Bush administration in FY 2003. While the commission's final appropriation for FY 2003 has not yet been decided, sources inside the NHPRC report that the congressionally-approved funding level for FY 2002 of $6.436 million (or thereabouts) is expected in FY 2003. NHPRC supporters will have their work cut out for them in the fiscal 2004 budget. In the past, NHPRC supporters have never been too concerned about the president's proposed budget for the NHPRC which has never approached the authorized level of $10 million. NHPRC supporters have relied on members of Congress friendly to the program to raise the numbers. That may not happen this year. With a new cast of characters on appropriating committees and with Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) no longer on the commission, the program is in need of new champions.

Bruce Craig is director of the National Coalition for History. He can be reached at: <rbcraig@historycoalition.org>. For the NCH, he edits the weekly electronic newsletter targeted to historians and archivists--the NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE. A complete backfile of these reports is maintained by H-NET on the NCH's web page at <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~nch>.

To subscribe to the "NCC Washington Update," send an e-mail message to <listserv@h-net.msu.edu>