NEPA, National Security, and Ocean Noise: The Past, Present, and Future of Regulating the Impact of Navy Sonar on Marine Mammals

摘要

Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with NRDC and a veteran of NEPA litigation challenging Navy sonar for the past two decades, offered these thoughtful observations about the past and future of balancing the needs of the Navy and marine mammals:In each case... the district courts have affirmed the principle that, absent an explicit statutory exemption, those laws apply not just to the rest of us but also to the military services in their training for our national defense, even in this post 9/11 era. And as settlement agreements have been achieved in those cases-agreements that allow the Navy to continue to train but under terms requiring a higher level of environmental compliance-it has become increasingly difficult to dispute that a balance between military preparedness and environmental protection is achievable if only there is a will to achieve it.