SCOTUS Rules for Navy in Sonar Dispute

Nine months ago, ARRA News reported about Supremacist Judges Attack Our Military with comments by Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum:

Two separate federal courts, one in San Francisco and the other in Los Angeles, just ordered the United States Navy to limit its use of sonar, the underwater radar essential for tracking enemy submarines and detecting the ocean floor. These rulings tie the hands of our Navy and are the latest outrage committed by judicial supremacists. The lawsuits were brought by environmental groups on behalf of whales and other sea creatures, using the claim that their ears and brains might be damaged by the sonar. The court rulings allow environmentalism to trump what the Navy needs to do to protect our national interest. These February rulings followed an anti-military ruling last November by the Ninth Circuit, which invited injunctions against the Navy to restrict its use of sonar . . .

Now the Supreme Court has ruled that that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in submarine-hunting exercises off the coast of southern California. AP reports:

Writing for the majority in the court's first decision of the term, Chief Justice John Roberts said the most serious possible injury to environmental groups would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals the groups study. "In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet," the chief justice wrote. He said the overall public interest tips strongly in favor of the Navy. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental organizations had sued the Navy, winning restrictions in lower federal courts on sonar use.

Five Justices Ruled for the Majority: Chief Justice John Robert, Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented. Justice John Paul Stevens did not join the majority opinion, but said the lower courts had failed to adequately explain the basis for siding with the environmental groups. Justice Stephen Breyer would have allowed some restrictions to remain.

The Navy challenged restrictions that included shutting down sonar when a marine mammal is spotted within 2,200 yards of a vessel. The court said that federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the Navy to limit sonar use in some cases and to turn it off altogether in others. [More on SCOTUS Descision]

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Tags: Activist Judges, environmentalists, federal judges, National Defense, Phyllis Schlafly, SCOTUS, sonar, U.S. District Court, US Navy, US Supreme Court, whales To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!