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.[3][4]
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.[7] 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[5][7] 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.[8][9]
John H. Adams was the group's first staff member and Duggan its founding chairman;[10] Seymour, Laurance Rockefeller, and others served as members of the board.[5]
In the 1970s, NRDC sought to block expansion of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York.[11] It has historically until the plant's closure in 2021, sought to close the plant.[12] NRDC has also sought to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California.[13] In 2018, the NRDC took no position on legislative proposals in New Jersey to subsidize three of its nuclear reactors.[14] 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.[15][16] In 2014, NRDC president Frances Beinecke said that the NRDC could not support nuclear power because it would lose donations.[17]
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.[18] In 2022, NRDC supported proposals to subsidize rooftop solar power generation.[19]
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".[20]
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".[21]
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.[22] 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.[23]
NRDC published onEarth, a quarterly magazine that dealt with environmental challenges, through 2016. It was founded in 1979 as The Amicus Journal.[24]AsAmicus, it won the George Polk Award in 1983 for special interest reporting.[25]
The council's first president was John H. Adams, who served until 2006.[26] He was replaced by Frances Beinecke, who served as president from 2006 to 2015.[27] The third president was Rhea Suh, who served from 2015 to 2019.[28]
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.[29][30][31] In 2021, NRDC selected Manish Bapna, formerly of the World Resources Institute, as their new president and CEO.[32] At their web site NRDC state they have about 700 employees including scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates.
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.[36][37]
^ abcdRobert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (revised ed.: Island Press, 2005), pp. 193–94.
^Jon Bowermaster, "Green Giants: On the Front Lines with Two Rival Guardians," New York (April 16, 1990).
^ abcMcGee 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.
^James Gustave Speth, Angels by the River: A Memoir (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014), pp. 96, 127.
