KIE: The U.S. Court of Appeals partially affirmed and partially vacated a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to halt experiments in which genetically engineered organisms would be deliberately released into the environment. It held that the National Institutes of Health, in approving an experiment planned by scientists at the University of California, had not adequately assessed its environmental impact, nor had the experiment met the standard of environmental review necessary before an agency by law may decline to prepare a formal Environmental Impact Statement. However, the appellate court ruled that other such experiments might be approved in the future if their environmental effects were properly evaluated.