The Emergency Decision was undertaken to accept the Rath proposal and hold a legal rally on site and at the same time to hold a mass non-violent civil disobedience at NRC headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
The Emergency Decision mechanism to allow decisions without the normal consensus process of sending CC proposals back to Clamshell regions and their affinity to obtain consensus and was suggested by Roy Morrison of the ORTF (Occupation/Restoration Task Force) that was planning the June 1978 action.