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27-415: "The Sunshine Act provides, with ten specified exemptions, that 'every portion of every meeting of an agency shall be open to public observation.' 5 U.S.C. 552b(b) It imposes procedural requirements to ensure, inter alia [among other things], that advance notice is given to the public before agency meetings take place. It also imposes procedural requirements an agency must follow before determining that one of

54-447: A "meeting" as "the deliberations of at least the number of individual agency members required to take action on behalf of the agency where such deliberations determine or result in the joint conduct or disposition of official agency business". 552b(a)(2). The statute defines "agency" to include "any agency ... headed by a collegial body composed of two or more individual members ... and any subdivision thereof authorized to act on behalf of

81-589: 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. NRDC has been involved in the following Supreme Court cases interpreting United States administrative law . James Gustave Speth James Gustave ( Gus ) Speth (born on March 4, 1942) is an American environmental lawyer and advocate who co-founded

108-542: 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. 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 , who served from 2015 to 2019. In 2020, Gina McCarthy served as

135-673: Is derived.' Government is and should be the servant of the people, and it should be fully accountable to them for the actions which it supposedly takes on their behalf." (U.S.C.C.A.N. 2183, 2186). Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council ( NRDC ) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group , with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C. , San Francisco , Los Angeles , Chicago , Bozeman , India , and Beijing . The group

162-600: 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. In 2014, NRDC president Frances Beinecke said that the NRDC could not support nuclear power because it would lose donations. In 2012, NRDC sued the federal government to stop the 663.5-megawatt Calico solar station in the Mojave Desert in California. NRDC said

189-477: The Ford Foundation 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 . 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. In September 1979 The Ford Foundation pulled funding for

216-1051: The National Wildlife Federation ’s Resources Defense Award, the Natural Resources Council of America's Barbara Swain Award of Honor, a 1997 Special Recognition Award from the Society for International Development , the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Environmental Law Institute , and the Blue Planet Prize . He holds honorary degrees from Clark University , the College of the Atlantic , Vermont Law School , Middlebury College , and

243-646: The Natural Resources Defense Council . He was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1942. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1964, attended Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Yale Law School , where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and the Yale Law Journal , in 1969. In 1969 and 1970, Speth served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black . He

270-796: The United Nations Development Programme ; he served as special coordinator for economic and social affairs under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali , managed the United Nations Development Assistance Plan and also served as chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group . In 1999, he became the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University , New Haven, Connecticut . He served

297-748: The United States Environmental Protection Agency to begin reducing tetraethyl lead in gasoline sooner than they were going to. 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 . NRDC supported the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014 (H.R. 5057; 113th Congress) ,

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324-818: 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. In 2021, NRDC selected Manish Bapna, formerly of the World Resources Institute , as their new president and CEO. At their web site NRDC state they have about 700 employees including scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates. NRDC v. U.S. EPA (1973), with David Schoenbrod caused

351-578: The NRDC alongside the Environmental Defense Fund after Henry Ford II said groups receiving foundation money were "antibusiness" and "biting the hand that feeds them." The NRDC had recently challenged the FDA's interim approval for Coca-Cola's first plastic bottle made of acrylonitrile/styrene. The FDA reported that test animals exposed to acrylonitrile had "significantly lowered body weight and other adverse effects, including lesions in

378-473: The President's environmental program. In 1981 and 1982, he was a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center , teaching environmental and constitutional law . In 1982, he founded the World Resources Institute , a Washington, D.C. -based environmental think tank , and served as its president until January 1993. He was a senior adviser to President-elect Bill Clinton 's transition team, heading

405-632: The advisory council of Represent.Us , a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization. Speth has been a leader or participant in many task forces and committees aimed at combating environmental degradation , including the President's Task Force on Global Resources and Environment; the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development; and the National Commission on the Environment. Among his awards are

432-467: The agency". 552b(a)(1). The Sunshine Act enumerates ten specific exemptions for categories of information that need not be disclosed. In summary these are: The legislative intent of the Act is as follows: "The basic premise of the sunshine legislation is that, in the words of federalist No. 49 , 'the people are the only legitimate foundation of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter ...

459-745: The central nervous system and growths in the ear ducts." and suspended its approval. In the 1970s, NRDC sought to block expansion of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York. It has historically until the plant's closure in 2021, sought to close the plant. NRDC has also sought to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California. In 2018, the NRDC took no position on legislative proposals in New Jersey to subsidize three of its nuclear reactors. NRDC has argued that nuclear power

486-463: The group that examined the U.S.'s role in natural resources , energy and the environment. In 1991, he chaired a U.S. task force on international development and environmental security which produced the report Partnership for Sustainable Development : A New U.S. Agenda . In 1990 he led the Western Hemisphere Dialogue on Environment and Development which produced the report Compact for a New World . From 1993 to 1999, he served as Administrator of

513-624: 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. Realizing that continued environmentalist litigation would require a nationally organized, professionalized group of lawyers and scientists, Duggan, Seymour, and Sive obtained funding from

540-748: The school as the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy when he retired from Yale in 2009 to assume a professorship at Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vermont . Speth was succeeded as Dean at Yale by Sir Peter Crane . In 2014 he published his memoir Angels by the River . In that year, he was also board member of the New Economy Coalition . Speth currently serves on

567-438: The solar plant would imperil protected wildlife. In 2022, NRDC supported proposals to subsidize rooftop solar power generation. 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

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594-458: The space we think should be covered by true renewables". 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,

621-420: The ten exemptions from the openness requirement applies. However, neither the openness requirement, nor the related procedural requirements, are triggered unless the governmental entity at issue is an 'agency,' and unless the gathering in question is a 'meeting' of the agency." Natural Resources Defense Council , Inc., v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission , 216 F.3d 1180, 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2000). The statute defines

648-593: The wild". 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. 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. NRDC published onEarth ,

675-581: The world's largest hydroelectric facility at Storm King Mountain in New York's Hudson Valley . The proposed facility would have pumped vast amounts of water from the Hudson River to a reservoir and released it through turbines to generate electricity at peak demand . A dozen concerned citizens organized the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference in opposition to the project, citing its environmental impact, and

702-534: Was a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council , where he served as senior attorney from 1970 to 1977. He served from 1977 to 1981 as a member and then for two years as chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President . As chair, he was a principal adviser on matters affecting the environment and had overall responsibility for developing and coordinating

729-615: Was founded in 1970 in opposition to a hydroelectric power plant in New York. 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. NRDC was founded in 1970. Its establishment was partially an outgrowth of the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission , the Storm King case. The case centered on Con Ed 's plan to build

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