Georgia-Pacific

December 17, 2003

Via Electronic Mail

Mr. Jonathan G. Katz
Secretary
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
450 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20549-0609

Re:   File No. S7-19-03

Dear Mr. Katz:

I am the Chairman and CEO of Georgia-Pacific Corporation, a Georgia corporation with $20 billion in annual revenues and more than 61,000 employees worldwide. I appreciate this opportunity to provide comments on the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") proposal to require companies to include shareholder nominees for director in company proxy materials under certain circumstances.

Georgia-Pacific has been a strong proponent of enhanced governance standards and we agree that corporate boards and management must hold themselves to the highest standards of corporate governance. As early as 1995 we had implemented board policies and procedures that anticipated many of the Sarbanes-Oxley standards and New York Stock Exchange listing criteria. We continue to strongly support the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and we appreciate the SEC's efforts to implement the Act. We also support the New York Stock Exchange corporate governance listing standards, which we believe will foster sound corporate governance and responsiveness and will encourage more transparent business practices.

However, we believe that complicating the director election process by requiring companies to include shareholder nominees in their proxy materials is not good corporate governance and, in fact, will enhance special interest groups' access to boardrooms. We strongly believe the Commission's proposal, in its present form, will overly complicate the director election process, risk requiring companies to include less than qualified shareholder nominees in their proxy materials, and will continue to erode the willingness of highly qualified independent directors to serve on boards of public companies.

If the inclusion of shareholder nominees in company proxy materials is to be required, we agree with the SEC that it only should be triggered by objective criteria indicating that shareholders have not had adequate access to an effective proxy process. We are concerned that the proposed rules are not limited to such situations. In particular, the trigger based on a majority-vote shareholder proposal to activate access would apply to any company, not merely those companies that have failed to respond to shareholder concerns. Moreover, the trigger based on a director's receipt of more than 35 percent of "withhold" votes, while more appropriate than the first trigger, would not give the board and its nominating committee an opportunity to respond to shareholder concerns about a director before the company's proxy process is deemed ineffective. The possible third trigger, a company's failure to implement a majority-vote shareholder proposal (other than a proposal to activate access), does not demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the proxy process. Finally, the proposed thresholds for shareholders to submit a proposal to activate access and to nominate directors are too low to justify the cost and substantial disruption of the proxy contests that would result.

We believe the SEC should allow the corporate governance reforms adopted by Congress, the SEC and the securities markets to be fully implemented before proceeding with additional regulation. With the increased independence of boards of directors, the strengthened role and independence of nominating committees, and the enhancement of shareholder-director communications, we believe that the issues that led to calls for shareholder access will be addressed. If the SEC nevertheless concludes that changes in the director election process are necessary, then we believe it is necessary to substantially revise the proposed rules to better target them to non-responsive companies.

Thank you for considering these concerns about the proposed rules. If you would like to discuss these comments or any other issue, please do not hesitate to call.

Sincerely,

[signature: A.D. Correll]

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