institute

In December 1801, William Marbury, Dennis Ramsay, Robert Townsend Hooe, and William Harper petitioned the Supreme Court for a rule requiring Secretary of State James Madison to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not issue commanding delivery of their commissions as justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. The applicants had been nominated by outgoing President John Adams. The Senate had advised and consented to the appointments. Commissions in due form were signed by the President with the seal of the United States affixed by the Secretary of State. During the proceedings the Court heard testimony from Department of State clerks Jacob Wagner and Daniel Brent, who described the preparation and handling of the commissions. Wagner recalled that two commissions had been signed but could not confirm whether those of the applicants were recorded. Brent believed Marbury's and Hooe's commissions were made out. Ramsay's was omitted by mistake. None of the Adams-signed commissions for District justices were recorded. Attorney General Levi Lincoln, who had acted as Secretary of State, testified that he had seen signed and sealed commissions but did not know whether any for the applicants were ever sent out. James Marshall's affidavit stated that on March 4, 1801, he received and later returned several commissions from the Secretary of State's office, including those for Hooe and Harper. The applicants also submitted the affidavit of Hazen Kimball confirming that commissions for Marbury and Hooe were in the office on March 3, 1801. Madison did not appear or show cause after the rule was served. The motion for the writ itself was heard in the February 1803 term.

In 1967 the Atomic Energy Commission granted Vermont Yankee a construction permit for a nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont, after the required adjudicatory hearing and reviews. Vermont Yankee later applied for an operating license; NRDC intervened and objected to exclusion of fuel-reprocessing and waste-disposal impacts from the hearing. In November 1972 the Commission opened a separate rulemaking proceeding on those fuel-cycle issues, noticed two alternative approaches based on its Environmental Survey, and conducted a February 1973 hearing at which more than forty participants submitted comments but no discovery or cross-examination occurred. In April 1974 the Commission adopted a rule assigning numerical values to fuel-cycle impacts and applied it prospectively. In January 1969 Consumers Power applied for permits to build two nuclear reactors in Midland, Michigan. After staff and ACRS review, Saginaw and Mapleton intervened and raised 119 environmental contentions, including seventeen on energy conservation. The Licensing Board held hearings on radiological issues, the staff issued a final environmental impact statement in March 1972, and further hearings occurred in May and June 1972; Saginaw declined to participate in the later hearings or submit proposed findings. The Licensing Board granted the construction permit, the Appeal Board affirmed, and the Commission declined further review. In November 1973 the Commission ruled in another case that energy-conservation evidence meeting threshold tests could be considered, but it later refused Saginaw's motion to reopen the Consumers Power record. NRDC appealed the Vermont Yankee license and rule to the D.C. Circuit; Saginaw and others appealed the Consumers Power permit. In 1976 the Court of Appeals remanded both matters, holding the fuel-cycle rulemaking procedures inadequate, the Consumers Power environmental impact statement defective for omitting energy conservation, and the ACRS report insufficiently explained. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1977. The Commission is the successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. All licensing proceedings followed the two-stage process of construction permit followed by operating license under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, with NEPA environmental reviews added after 1969.