Legalities
Life, Politics and the Law From ABC News Correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg
Jan Crawford Greenburg is a correspondent for ABC News' bureau in Washington DC. She covers politics, the Supreme Court and provides legal analysis for ABC News. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago's law school and is a member of the New York bar.
RECENT POSTS
MONTHLY ARCHIVES
« Previous | Main | Next »
Sonar Over Whales
November 12, 2008 12:24 PM
In its first opinion of the term, the Supreme Court has rejected an environmental group's efforts to sharply limit Naval submarine training off the coast of California, saying national security issues strongly outweigh any alleged harm to marine mammals.
The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, allows the Navy to conduct submarine exercises in the Pacific without two conditions imposed by lower courts.
The exercises involve the use of sonar to detect and track enemy submarines. The National Resources Defense Council filed suit to impose conditions, arguing the exercises harm whales and other mammals. Lower courts sided with the NRDC, and required the Navy to take several steps to mitigate any possible harm to the marine life. The Navy challenged two of those conditions as being too disruptive to its required training.
In lifting a lower court order, Roberts wrote: "The public interest in conducting training exercises with active sonar under realistic conditions plainly outweighs the interests advanced by the plaintiffs. Of course, military interests do not always trump other considerations, and we have not held that they do. In this case, however, the proper determination of where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question.
According to our colleague Luis Martinez, the decision has produced "big smiles" up at the Navy offices. The Navy had argued that two of the conditions, including an order that the Navy shut down sonar if it detects a marine mammal within 2,220 feet, would disrupt training exercises.
While the case may not have seemed like a "close question" to five justices, it certainly was to the other four.
The case produced three separate opinions, and a head-count is tricky. (This is a problem we don't usually get until those big end-of-term cases, when we often see justices joining only part of a decision or writing separately.)
Here's how I see it now, after a quick run through: Bottom line: Six of the justices are siding with the Navy, which had challenged two specific conditions on training imposed by lower courts.
The details: Roberts has a five-justice majority for his opinion (Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito).
Justice John Paul Stevens is the wild card: He did not join Roberts' majority opinion, but he nonetheless agreed with the Navy that lower courts had no basis to impose the two stringent conditions on training.
Justice Stephen Breyer sided with the Navy, in part, but would have allowed lower courts to impose some conditions on training while the Navy completed an environmental study.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a sharp dissent, joined by Justice David Souter, detailing the "likely, substantial harm" to the environment by the Naval training.
You can read more about the case in Ariane de Vogue's story, HERE.
November 12, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (3)
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
There is NO REASON why the persons on the Subs can not be trained to hear whales sonar sounds, unless the Gov. and Military have NO REGUARD for life even if it is an animal, after all GOD created ALL LIFE on this PLANET.Oh well I guess on JUDGEMENT DAY ALL OF THOSE WHO MADE THESE CHOICES WILL HAVE TO ANSWER FOR IT.
Posted by: Birdsong54 | Nov 12, 2008 10:18:20 PM
I can't belive that Navy officials were smiling. What is the major threat here? How many nations have submarines that are enemies? Russia, I assume, is the biggest submarine threat and there navy is in dissaray. They just had a major disaster where 20 died. There comes a point where enough is enough. The marine life is "collateral damage" and Navy officials are smiling? This is ashame.
Posted by: Gabriel Stein | Nov 13, 2008 4:58:02 AM
All the world's militaries think that they are masters of the earth when they are really only the masters of it's destruction. The meek will inherit the earth after mankind has destroyed itself.
Posted by: seemstome | Nov 17, 2008 5:03:58 PM
Post a comment
