Today, on behalf of the U.S. Navy League - Honolulu Council, nine retired Navy Admirals, naval warfare experts, and other civic organizations, we filed an amicus brief in support of the U.S. Navy in the Winter v. NRDC case pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief is here.
We represent several major civic organizations concerned about the impact this case has on military preparedness. We also represent nine retired Navy Admirals, including a former Chief of Naval Operations, Commanders of Pacific Command and the Pacific Fleet, and commanders of battle groups, aircraft carriers and surface combatants.
The thrust of our argument is that the Ninth Circuit injunction against the Navy restricting sonar use pending completion of an EIS based on an asserted lack of study of the purported harms to marine mammals is not warranted when those harms are themselves exempt from the substantive environmental protection statute, to wit: the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
This is not a case of the courts giving permission to the Navy to kill marine mammals. Rather, this case is about who is best suited, statutorily, to adopt those measures that are required to protect marine mammals when balanced against the potentially competing needs of national defense. The Navy has in place measures to mitigate harms to marine mammals. District by district, piecemeal injunctions are a recipe for inconsistent training for Navy sonar operators with potentially detrimental impacts on military readiness.
In the past two years, in separate incidents, a Chinese diesel electric submarine approached a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Strait and was within torpedo-range of the ship, prior to detection by the U.S. ships. Aircraft carriers have several thousand sailors serving onboard. The incident was reported here and here.
The Government's Brief is here. Amicus California Forestry Association's brief can be downloaded here.
My earlier posts are here, here, and here.
The opinion below is here, the government's petition here, NRDC's Opposition is here and the government's Reply is here.
This case has a chaotic procedural history, with trips up and down the appeals courts, with one stop at the White House. There is a parallel case pending in the District of Hawaii, posted here.
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