Opinion ID: 3172147
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Interagency Policy Committees

Text: The Interagency Policy Committees are “the main day‐to‐day fora for interagency coordination of national security policy.” Id. at 5. As such, they “provide policy analysis for consideration by the more senior committees of the NSC system and ensure timely responses to decisions made by the President.” Id. They also “review and coordinate the implementation of Presidential decisions in their policy areas.” Id. In short, the Interagency Policy Committees’ only task is to provide assistance within an NSC System that functions solely to advise and assist the President; the Committees exercise no authority independent of the President. 45 In urging otherwise, Main Street contends that a Justice Department investigation shows that, with respect to “policy decision‐making for detention issues,” authority independent of the President was exercised successively at each of three NSC committee levels: the Interagency Policy Committee, the Deputies Committee, and the Principals Committee. Appellant’s Br. 26. In fact, the report cited for this assertion does not support it. See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Insp. Gen., A Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq (2009), available at http://1.usa.gov/1MqabYs. The report states that “discussions” on various detention matters, including “processes for sorting detainees and later for the repatriation or release of detainees, took place in a Policy Coordinating Committee.” Id. at 16–17. Such discussions are necessary to the “coordination” task assigned Interagency Policy Committees by the President. They are not an exercise of authority independent of the President. The cited report further states that “detainee issues” not resolved by an Interagency Policy Committee were raised to the Deputies Committee and, if not resolved there, to the Principals Committee. Id. at 17. This does not demonstrate each committee’s exercise of authority independent of 46 the President. Rather, it shows that where agency representatives in each committee could agree on how to coordinate detainee issues consistent with the President’s policy, they did so, but where they encountered disagreements that they could not reconcile, they raised the issue to the next higher committee level. It is hardly surprising that department heads serving on the Principals Committee, many of whom also served on the National Security Council, were better able than their subordinates to reconcile certain disagreements to ensure their departments’ coordinated compliance with the President’s policies. Nor is there any reason to think that if the Principals Committee could not do so, it would not have raised the matter to the Council for presidential decision. In sum, we identify nothing in the President’s organization of the NSC System that allows any part thereof to exercise authority independent of the President. Rather, PPD‐1 organizes the NSC System to establish a hierarchy of interagency fora for providing the President with information and recommendations on national security issues from across the executive branch, as well as for coordinating implementation of the President’s policies across government departments. Thus, we conclude that the NSC System, like the 47 Council, has a single function: to advise and assist the President. Because it exercises no independent authority, it is not an agency subject to the FOIA. d. Executive Orders Grant the NSC System No Authority Independent of the President The various executive orders cited by Main Street also fail to support its argument that the NSC System exercises authority independent of the President. One cited order provides for coordination, guidance, and dispute resolution in the area of emergency communications policy through the interagency process provided in PPD‐1. See Exec. Order No. 13,618 § 2.1, 3 C.F.R. 273, 273–74 (2013). We have already concluded that coordination and guidance within the NSC System assist the President in implementing his policies; they do not constitute an exercise of independent authority. The same conclusion obtains with respect to dispute resolution through the PPD‐1 interagency process. As we have explained, that process establishes a hierarchy of interagency fora for full discussion across government departments of national security issues and coordinated implementation by departments of the President’s policies. But the resolution of disputes in this process appears to be consensual, thus narrowing the matters requiring Council and, ultimately, presidential attention. Nowhere does the order authorize any part of the NSC 48 System on its own to dictate a resolution to any objecting government department. Another cited order provides for NSC review of both past covert operations and new proposed operations for the purpose of providing “support to the President” and submitting “to the President a policy recommendation.” Exec. Order No. 13,470 sec. 2, § 1.2, 3 C.F.R. 218, 219–20 (2009). This is entirely consistent with the NSC’s statutory advisory function, and indicates no exercise of authority independent of the President. Similarly, executive orders providing for the NSC to formulate or give policy direction for security programs affecting multiple agencies, or to approve or review such programs’ directives or actions, do not reach beyond the NSC’s advisory coordinating function. See Exec. Order No. 13,603 § 104(a), 3 C.F.R. 225, 226 (2013) (providing for NSC, along with other bodies, to “serve as the integrated policymaking forum for consideration and formulation of national defense resource preparedness policy” and to make recommendations to President on use of statutory authority); Exec. Order No. 12,829 § 102(a)–(b), 3 C.F.R. 570, 570–71 (1994) (providing for NSC to give “overall policy direction” on National Industrial Security Program, to approve directives of that program, and 49 to resolve interagency disputes). Because the NSC is statutorily charged with advising the President as to the integration of policies requiring cooperation among diverse agencies, see 50 U.S.C. § 3021(a)–(b), we will not assume that executive orders providing for NSC involvement in programs requiring such coordinated policies grant the NSC authority independent of the President who presides over it. Finally, we identify no grant of independent authority in the executive order creating a Steering Committee, chaired by senior representatives of the NSC Staff and the Office of Management and Budget, to establish and review “goals” for interagency sharing and safeguarding of classified information. Exec. Order No. 13,587 § 3, 3 C.F.R. 276, 277 (2012). The order does not contemplate that the Steering Committee will pronounce policies, or even set priorities or standards. Rather, it directs the Steering Committee to “coordinat[e] interagency development and implementation” of such matters. Id. § 3.1 (emphasis added). Such coordination is at the core of the assistance provided to the President by the NSC. It involves no exercise of authority independent of the President or even independent of the agencies endeavoring to coordinate their own efforts. See supra at [20–21]. This is evident from the fact that, when coordination cannot be 50 achieved in the Steering Committee, the executive order provides for referral to the NSC Deputies Committee in accordance with PPD‐1. See Exec. Order No. 13,587 § 3.3(h), 3 C.F.R. at 277. The Deputies Committee exercises no independent authority, see supra at [43–45]; rather, it provides yet another forum for still higher ranking officials to resolve coordination challenges. Moreover, when the Steering Committee identifies a need for an overarching policy beyond interagency coordination, the executive order does not authorize the Committee to promulgate that policy itself. Rather, it directs the Steering Committee to recommend promulgation to agencies outside the NSC System authorized to do so, specifically, the Office of Management and Budget or the Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives and Records Administration. See Exec. Order No. 13,587 § 3.3(e), 3 C.F.R. at 277. Accordingly, we reject Main Street’s argument that the cited executive orders confer on the Council or NSC System any authority that can be exercised independent of the President.