Natural Resources Defense Council v. Abraham, 223 F. Supp. 2d 162 (D.D.C. 2002)
Case Summary:
On behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council, we obtained a preliminary injunction based upon the Department of Energy's failure to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) when it received advice from a National Academy of Sciences committee regarding the National Ignition Facility. The injunction, which prohibited DOE's use of the NAS report, was the first such "use injunction" ever issued in the DC Circuit. After the court of appeals reversed the district court's final judgment and remanded on the grounds that plaintiffs had been denied the opportunity to take discovery, the parties settled the case with an agreement requiring DOE and NAS to notify recipients of the NAS report that it had been prepared in violation of FACA.
A few years later we represented NRDC and Tri-Valley CARES in a challenge to the Department of Energy's (DOE) use of advisory committees to validate its plans for a multi-billion dollar laser facility - the National Ignition Facility (NIF) - under construction in Livermore, CA. The court ruled that DOE has an illegal policy of forming these committees, and ordered DOE to release documents from past committees.
Plaintiffs: Natural Resource Defense Council, Inc., and Tri-Valley Cares
Court: United States District Court for the District of Columbia