Natural Resources Defense Council

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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bozeman, India, and Beijing.<ref name="NRDC offices">Template:Cite news</ref> The group was founded in 1970 in opposition to a hydroelectric power plant in New York.

As of 2019, the NRDC had over three million members, with online activities nationwide, and a staff of about 700 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts.<ref name="fy2015financials">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

NRDC was founded in 1970.<ref name="Gottlieb">Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (revised ed.: Island Press, 2005), pp. 193–94.</ref><ref>Jon Bowermaster, "Green Giants: On the Front Lines with Two Rival Guardians," New York (April 16, 1990).</ref> Its establishment was partially an outgrowth of the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, the Storm King case.<ref name="Gottlieb"/> The case centered on Con Ed's plan to build the world's largest hydroelectric facility at Storm King Mountain in New York's Hudson Valley. The proposed facility would have pumped vast amounts of water from the Hudson River to a reservoir and released it through turbines to generate electricity at peak demand.<ref name="Young">McGee Young, "The Price of Advocacy: Mobilization and Maintenance in Advocacy Organizations" in Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action (eds. Aseem Prakash & Mary Kay Gugerty), pp. 40-42.</ref>

A dozen concerned citizens organized the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference in opposition to the project, citing its environmental impact, and the group, represented by Whitney North Seymour Jr., his law partner Stephen Duggan, and David Sive, sued the Federal Power Commission and successfully achieved a ruling that groups such as Scenic Hudson and other environmentalist groups had the standing to challenge the FPC's administrative rulings.<ref name="Young"/> Realizing that continued environmentalist litigation would require a nationally organized, professionalized group of lawyers and scientists, Duggan, Seymour, and Sive obtained funding from the Ford Foundation<ref name="Gottlieb"/><ref name="Young"/> and joined forces with Gus Speth and three other recent Yale Law School graduates of the class of 1969: Richard Ayres, Edward Strohbehn Jr., and John Bryson.<ref>James Gustave Speth, Angels by the River: A Memoir (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014), pp. 96, 127.</ref><ref>Law School Honors Four Alumni Who Helped Create the Natural Resources Defense Council, Yale Law School (May 7, 2010).</ref>

John H. Adams was the group's first staff member and Duggan its founding chairman;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Seymour, Laurance Rockefeller, and others served as members of the board.<ref name="Gottlieb"/>

In September 1979 The Ford Foundation pulled funding for the NRDC alongside the Environmental Defense Fund after Henry Ford II said groups receiving foundation money were "antibusiness" and "biting the hand that feeds them."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The NRDC had recently challenged the FDA's interim approval for Coca-Cola's first plastic bottle made of acrylonitrile/styrene.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The FDA reported that test animals exposed to acrylonitrile had "significantly lowered body weight and other adverse effects, including lesions in the central nervous system and growths in the ear ducts."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and suspended its approval.

Position on nuclear power

In the 1970s, NRDC sought to block expansion of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It has historically until the plant's closure in 2021, sought to close the plant.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> NRDC has also sought to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2018, the NRDC took no position on legislative proposals in New Jersey to subsidize three of its nuclear reactors.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> NRDC has argued that nuclear power is not a viable energy source to mitigate climate change, arguing that it poses public health and safety risks through nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2014, NRDC president Frances Beinecke said that the NRDC could not support nuclear power because it would lose donations.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Position on solar power

In 2012, NRDC sued the federal government to stop the 663.5-megawatt Calico solar station in the Mojave Desert in California. NRDC said the solar plant would imperil protected wildlife.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2022, NRDC supported proposals to subsidize rooftop solar power generation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Position on hydropower

NRDC's position on hydropower is that it is not a renewable energy source. When Indian Point was scheduled for closure, NRDC held no position on a proposal to build a transmission line to Quebec to access excess hydropower while arguing, "we certainly would not be on board where [hydropower] gobbles up the space we think should be covered by true renewables".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Programs

NRDC states the purpose of its work is "safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends," and to "ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water and the wild, and to prevent special interests from undermining public interests." Their stated areas of work include: "climate change, communities, energy, food, health, oceans, water, the wild".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

As a legal advocacy group, the NRDC works to accomplish environmental goals by operating within the legal system to reduce pollution and protect natural resources through litigation, and by working with professionals in science, law, and policy at the national and international level.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The NRDC's Center for Campaigns & Organizing (CC&O) also oversees the NRDC Action Fund, a separate 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization which engages in political and electoral activities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

NRDC published onEarth, a quarterly magazine that dealt with environmental challenges, through 2016. It was founded in 1979 as The Amicus Journal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As Amicus, it won the George Polk Award in 1983 for special interest reporting.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Staff

The council's first president was John H. Adams, who served until 2006.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was replaced by Frances Beinecke, who served as president from 2006 to 2015.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The third president was Rhea Suh, who served from 2015 to 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2020, Gina McCarthy served as the CEO and president. She previously served as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration and became White House National Climate Advisor in the Biden administration in 2021.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2021, NRDC selected Manish Bapna, formerly of the World Resources Institute, as their new president and CEO.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At their web site NRDC state they have about 700 employees including scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates.

Legislation

NRDC v. U.S. EPA (1973), with David Schoenbrod caused the United States Environmental Protection Agency to begin reducing tetraethyl lead in gasoline sooner than they were going to.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

NRDC opposed the Water Rights Protection Act, a bill that would prevent federal agencies from requiring certain entities to relinquish their water rights to the United States in order to use public lands.<ref name=3189cbo>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=riversatrisk1>Template:Cite news</ref>

NRDC supported the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014 (H.R. 5057; 113th Congress), a bill that would exempt certain external power supplies from complying with standards set forth in a final rule published by the United States Department of Energy in February 2014.<ref name=cbo5057>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=ITIhankin>Template:Cite web</ref>

Effect on administrative law

NRDC has been involved in the following Supreme Court cases interpreting United States administrative law.

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Template:Ussc, which held that courts could not impose additional procedural requirements on administrative agencies beyond that required by the agency's organic statute or the Administrative Procedure Act.<ref>Template:Ussc.</ref>
Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Template:Ussc, which gave administrative agencies broad discretion to interpret statute to make policy changes if Congressional intent was unclear.<ref>Template:Ussc.</ref>
Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Template:Ussc<ref name="BGE-Case">Template:Ussc.</ref> is a United States Supreme Court decision which held to be valid a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rule that the permanent storage of nuclear waste should be assumed to have no environmental impact during the licensing of nuclear power plants.

References

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External links

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