Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Inc. v. James R. Schlesinger No. A-483

Background

The dispute concerns the Atomic Energy Commission’s plan to detonate an underground nuclear device called CANNIKIN at Amchitka. A group challenging the test says the AEC did not meet the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement for a full, candid environmental impact statement. The Court of Appeals found substantial questions about the AEC’s statement; the District Court had earlier found compliance. Several internal expert reports and memos were not originally disclosed to the public or to the impact statement.

Reasoning

The core question was whether the AEC satisfied §102(2)(C) of NEPA by fully considering and disclosing environmental harms, alternatives, and opposing expert views. Justice Douglas says the Impact Statement omitted, downplayed, or misrepresented critical dissenting analyses — including memoranda from the Council on Environmental Quality, the USGS, and other scientists — and ignored CEQ guidance that such agency comments must be available. He highlights big gaps and conflicting estimates about whether the blast could trigger large earthquakes, cause tsunamis, or speed radioactive groundwater to the sea. Because the procedural record appears defective and those risks are serious, Douglas would enjoin the test so courts can decide the merits.

Real world impact

If the test proceeded without fuller review, there could be real risks to nearby ecosystems and coastal communities from earthquakes, tsunamis, and faster-than-expected radioactive contamination of groundwater and the ocean. The injunction Douglas would order is temporary: it aims to prevent a possibly irreversible event and to force agencies to disclose reports and correct the Impact Statement before any detonation.

Dissents or concurrances

Justices Brennan and Marshall would grant a temporary restraining order pending further Court review, agreeing the case raises urgent unresolved legal and safety questions.