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CASE

Correspondence in a DOHA case

Each letter in a contested case: what it is, what it means, what to do, what happens next, and what the decided record shows. Select the letter you received.

Before any decision

Interrogatory (LOI)

The government's case

SORFORMNotice of Hearing

Decision and appeal

The decisionAppeal Board

The Department of Energy notification letter

In plain terms

The Department of Energy decides its own security cases under its own regulation, 10 CFR Part 710. People at the national laboratories, at DOE itself, and at DOE contractors go through this process rather than the contractor process described elsewhere on this page. The formal notice is called a notification letter, and attached to it is a summary of security concerns setting out what the concerns are. It is not called a statement of reasons, and the deadlines are different.

The deadline

There are 20 calendar days from receiving the notification letter to make a written request for a hearing. Missing that window is treated as giving up the right to a hearing, and the case is then decided on the existing paperwork by a DOE manager. A written answer may be filed as well. Requesting a hearing without filing a written answer counts as denying everything in the letter.

Work out your exact dates with the deadline calculator.

Who decides

A DOE administrative judge in the Office of Hearings and Appeals holds the hearing and issues the decision. The government is represented by DOE Counsel. Hearings are not open to the public, and the transcript is provided at no cost.

Appeals

Either side may appeal to the DOE Headquarters Appeal Panel, and each has 30 calendar days measured from receipt of the notice passing on the decision, not from the date on the decision itself. That means a favorable decision is not final on the day it is issued. The panel considers only the evidence that was already in the file.

The deadline calculator on this site covers the contractor track only and does not apply to these dates. Source: 10 CFR Part 710.

If the document received is not correspondence in a contested case (a questionnaire, a release, a fingerprint request, a processing notice, or an access agreement), see the clearance document directory, which identifies each form and notice by its number.

How the process worksThe letters sit inside a published sequence: interrogatories, the SOR, a hearing or the written record, a decision, and an appeal.

A contested case follows a published path: a Statement of Reasons, the government's written list of its concerns (an SOR), a written answer, a hearing or a decision on the written record, the judge's decision, and in some cases an appeal.

Read the stages of a DOHA case · Ask a question about the process

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