The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3)

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

international environmental

advocacy group Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the develop ...

, with its headquarters in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and offices in Washington D.C.,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, Bozeman, and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. Founded in 1970, 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.

History

The NRDC was founded in 1970.Robert Gottlieb, ''Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement'' (revised ed.: Island Press, 2005), pp. 193–94. Its establishment was partially an outgrowth of the ''

Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission ''Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission'', 354 F.2d 608 ( 2d Cir. 1965) is a United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals case in which a public group of citizens, the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference, organ ...

'', the Storm King case. The case centered on

Con Ed Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 b ...

's plan to build the world's largest hydroelectric facility at Storm King Mountain. The proposed facility would have pumped vast amounts of water from the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

to a reservoir and released it through turbines to generate electricity at peak demand.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. 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. Whitney North Seymour Jr. (July 7, 1923 – June 29, 2019), known to friends as Mike Seymour, was an American politician and attorney from New York City. Born to a prominent family, Seymour graduated from Princeton University and Yale Law Scho ...

, 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. 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 and joined forces with Gus Speth and three other recent

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

graduates of the class of 1969: Richard Ayres, Edward Strohbehn Jr. and John Bryson. John H. Adams was the group's first staff member and Duggan its founding chairman; Seymour, Laurance Rockefeller, and others served as members of the board. NRDC published ''onEarth'', a quarterly magazine that dealt with environmental challenges, through 2016. It was founded in 1979 as ''The Amicus Journal''. As ''Amicus'', it won the George Polk Award in 1983 for special interest reporting.

Programs

The 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 In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, communities, energy, food, health, oceans, water, the wild". As a legal

, 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.

Staff

The council's first president was John H. Adams, who served until 2006. He was replaced by Frances Beinecke, who served as president from 2006 to 2015. The third president was

Rhea Suh Rhea Suh is a former government official who served as Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget of the United States Department of the Interior from 2009 to 2014 and president of the Natural Resources Defense Council from 2015 to 2019. ...

, who served from 2015 to 2019. In 2020, Gina McCarthy served as the CEO and president. She previously served as the head of the

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

in the Obama administration and became White House National Climate Advisor in the Biden administration in 2021. In 2021, NRDC selected Manish Bapna, formerly of the

World Resources Institute The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research non-profit organization established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth. WRI's activities are focused on seven areas: food, fo ...

, as their new President and CEO. 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 David S. Schoenbrod is a trustee professor of law at New York Law School. From 1972-79 Schoenbrod's work with the Natural Resources Defense Council made the United States Environmental Protection Agency begin reducing tetraethyl lead in gasoline s ...

caused the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...

to begin reducing

tetraethyl lead Tetraethyllead (commonly styled tetraethyl lead), abbreviated TEL, is an organolead compound with the formula Pb( C2H5)4. It is a fuel additive, first being mixed with gasoline beginning in the 1920s as a patented octane rating booster that ...

in gasoline sooner than they were going to. NRDC opposed the

Water Rights Protection Act The Water Rights Protection Act () is 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. The bill was introduced into the United States Ho ...

, 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. NRDC supported the

EPS Service Parts Act of 2014 (H.R. 5057; 113th Congress) The EPS Service Parts Act of 2014 () is 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. The United States House C ...

, 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 The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

in February 2014.

Effect on administrative law

The NRDC has been involved in the following

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

cases interpreting United States administrative law. * ''

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. ''Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council'', 435 U.S. 519 (1978), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a court cannot impose rulemaking procedures on a federal government agency. The federal ...

'', , 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 The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), , is the United States federal statute that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations, and it grants U.S. federa ...

. * '' Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.'', , which gave administrative agencies broad discretion to interpret statute to make policy changes if Congressional intent was unclear.. * '' Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.'', . 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

External links

* {{Authority control 1970 establishments in the United States Environmental organizations based in New York City Environmental organizations based in the United States Environmental organizations established in 1970 Non-profit organizations based in New York City