In an opinion of widely disputed but potentially substantial impact on the law governing judicial review of administrative decision making, the United States Supreme Court on April 3 reversed two opinions of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which had remanded to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) separate decisions to license two nuclear power plants. Amid stern criticism of the appeals court for overzealous activism amounting to "judicial intervention run riot," the High Court in Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council¹ unanimously held that where parties to the NRC's licensing proceedings have been afforded the minimum procedural privileges guaranteed by §553 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),² reviewing courts must find those procedures adequate in the absence of "extremely compelling circumstances."³ The effect of this ruling is to call into question the D.C. Circuit's long-standing practice of requiring agencies to augment basic notice and comment rule making with more sophisticated procedural devices, such as cross-examination and discovery, to form what is known as "hybrid" rule making.⁴

The decision also marks the Supreme Court's first notable venture into agency consideration of alternatives under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).⁵ In upholding the Commission's decision not to analyze energy conservation measures as an alternative to the construction of two nuclear reactors, the opinion essentially retraces existing standards as to federal agencies' affirmative duty to consider project alternatives proposed by an outside party.