## Facts

- The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) ran a national Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) program intended to develop and commercially deploy breeder reactor technology.
- The program had progressed beyond basic research toward creating a commercial breeder reactor industry, supported by substantial ongoing federal funding and a planned timetable for demonstration and deployment.
- Widespread deployment of breeder reactors was expected to pose substantial environmental and public health risks, including issues tied to plutonium handling, fuel reprocessing, and long-lived radioactive waste.
- Scientists’ Institute for Public Information, Inc. (SIPI), a nonprofit that disseminated scientific and environmental information, sought a program-wide environmental impact statement (EIS) analyzing the LMFBR program and alternatives.
- The AEC declined to prepare a programmatic EIS, taking the position that NEPA review could wait for later, project-specific decisions.

## Issues

1. Whether the AEC’s overall LMFBR program constituted a “major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment” or a proposal requiring a NEPA § 102(2)(C) EIS at the program stage.
2. Whether SIPI had standing to challenge the AEC’s failure to prepare a program-level EIS.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court and remanded for entry of declaratory relief requiring preparation of an EIS for the LMFBR program.
- The court held that the LMFBR program fell within NEPA’s EIS requirement based on its scale, direction toward commercialization, and potential environmental consequences.
- The court held SIPI had standing because the absence of a NEPA-required EIS impaired SIPI’s ability to obtain and disseminate information to the public.
- The court did not order an immediate program-wide injunction, focusing instead on NEPA compliance through a programmatic EIS.

## Legal Principles

- NEPA requires environmental analysis early enough to inform decision-making before major commitments of resources narrow practical alternatives.
- A programmatic (generic) EIS may be required for a large federal program when cumulative commitments and planned deployment are likely to significantly affect the environment, even if later project-specific EISs may also be needed.
- An agency may not avoid NEPA review by characterizing a program as “research and development” when the program’s funding, planning, and trajectory reflect movement toward implementation and commercialization.
- An organization can have standing under NEPA where the absence of a required EIS causes a concrete informational injury that impedes its activities aimed at informing the public.

## Conclusion

The court required the AEC to prepare a program-wide EIS for the LMFBR program because the program’s scale, movement toward commercial deployment, and potentially significant environmental effects triggered NEPA at the program level, and it recognized standing for a public-information organization harmed by the lack of NEPA-mandated environmental disclosure.


Scientists’ Inst. for Pub. Info., Inc. v. Atomic Energy Comm’n, 481 F.2d 1079 (D.C. Cir. 1973)