~4the Administrative Procedure Act, by which the Secretary of the Interior would establish the criteria to be used in determining which "other atolls” have been affected by the testing program. We would expect that those criteria would be developed in the first instance by an inter-agency group, because many The Federal agencies are concerned with the matter of radiation standards. procedure, therefore, for the designation of "other atolls" that would benefit from the program required by Public Law 96-205 would necessarily be a protracted one. There would unquestionably be disputes among those interested as to what SPECIFIC the criteria should be, and whether atolls are or are not comprehended by a those criteria. Implementation Immediately following the President's approval of Public Law 96-205 on March 12, 1980, the Departments of the Interior and Energy undertook to arrange the necessary funding to support the preparation of the plan. Awp soon as financial arrangements permitted us to do so, we invited the i As oF interested agencies end(representatives of the warshaiesitoneet with us to discuss Interior's proposed implementation of the statute. With Department of Energy funding, the Department of the Interior invited and paid the travel costs of two representatives from each of the named atolls ‘ and from the Government of the Marshall Islands, the lawyer for each ewer gvewa, if he was not Washington-based, and txmeetetere, (WTEK CRETORS. ABsvE+ MENT WED Fe RS0WS Meetings with the fesepedee were held in Washington on August 4 and Aa August 6, 1980. The basis for the meetings was a Discussion Paper prepared by the Interior Department and distributed to the interested parties in advance. All were afforded an opportunity thereafter to submit written comments on Interior's proposed procedure.