On May 16, 1984, Federal District Court Judge John J. Sirica temporarily halts all federally funded experiments involving the deliberate release of recombinant DNA organisms, causing a scramble among many federal agencies to see which shall have regulatory responsibility.

Agreeing with social activist Jeremy Rifkin’s charge that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act when it approved the experiment, Sirica strongly suggested that he would also rule in Rifkin’s favor on a suit to block all similar federally funded experiments until NIH has conducted an exhaustive evaluation of their potential environmental impact. Sirica’s decision, however, left the NIH Recombinant Advisory Committee free to approve privately-funded experiments, which are not covered by the same environmental laws.

Sirica ruled that in approving that experiment, the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) of the NIH had failed to satisfy two legal requirements: it had not conducted a formal environmental assessment of the experiment, and it had not prepared a much lengthier environmental impact statement (EIS) on the entire programme of environmental release of recombinant DNA.