Natural Resources Defense Council

• 1. A Mountain and a Movement

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  The Natural Resources Defense Council was born from a fight over a mountain in New York's Hudson Valley. Consolidated Edison had proposed building what it called the world's largest hydroelectric facility at Storm King Mountain. The plan involved pumping vast volumes of water from the Hudson River up into a hilltop reservoir. From there, it would be released through turbines to generate electricity at peak demand.

  A dozen concerned citizens organized to stop it. Their legal battle would establish new rights for environmental groups to challenge federal agency decisions. It would also spark the creation of an institution that, by 2019, had over three million members. A staff of about 700 lawyers, scientists, and policy experts works under its banner.

  What turned a local conservation campaign into a national legal force? And why does an organization devoted to protecting nature sometimes find itself at odds with other environmentalists over solar panels, dams, and nuclear plants?

• 2. Standing to Fight

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  Whitney North Seymour Jr. argued the Scenic Hudson case alongside his law partner Stephen Duggan and attorney David Sive. They sued the Federal Power Commission directly. The central legal question was whether citizen environmental groups had the right to challenge federal agency decisions at all. The court ruled that they did.

  That ruling, known formally as Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, gave environmental organizations legal standing they had not previously held. Seymour, Duggan, and Sive recognized that winning one case was not enough. Sustained environmental litigation would require a nationally organized, professionalized body of lawyers and scientists.

  Duggan and Seymour obtained funding from the Ford Foundation. They joined forces with Gus Speth and three other graduates of Yale Law School's class of 1969. Those three were Richard Ayres, Edward Strohbehn Jr., and John Bryson. John H. Adams became the organization's first staff member. Duggan served as founding chairman. Laurance Rockefeller was among those who joined the board.

  The Ford Foundation's support gave the new organization its financial footing, but that relationship carried risks that would become apparent within the decade.

• 3. Biting the Hand

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  In September 1979, the Ford Foundation cut off funding to the NRDC and the Environmental Defense Fund. Henry Ford II provided the reason himself: he said the groups were 'antibusiness' and 'biting the hand that feeds them.'

  The timing was tied to a specific fight the NRDC had recently picked. The organization had challenged the Food and Drug Administration's interim approval for Coca-Cola's first plastic bottle. The bottle was made of acrylonitrile and styrene. The FDA's own findings about acrylonitrile were stark. Test animals exposed to the compound showed significantly lowered body weight. They also developed lesions in the central nervous system and growths in the ear ducts. The FDA suspended its approval of the bottle.

  The Ford Foundation's exit forced the NRDC to seek more diverse funding sources. Over the following decades, it built a broader membership base to sustain its work.

  In the legal arena, meanwhile, the NRDC was building cases destined for the United States Supreme Court. Those cases would eventually reshape how federal agencies interpret and apply their statutory authority.

• 4. Rewriting Federal Law

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  In 1973, a case called NRDC v. U.S. EPA, litigated alongside attorney David Schoenbrod, produced a concrete result. The Environmental Protection Agency was compelled to begin reducing tetraethyl lead in gasoline sooner than it had originally planned.

  Larger battles lay ahead in the Supreme Court. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council raised a question about how much procedural oversight courts could impose on federal agencies. The Court held that judges could not add procedural requirements beyond those in the agency's governing statute. Requirements also could not exceed those of the Administrative Procedure Act.

  Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council placed the NRDC at the center of a ruling that would define administrative law for decades. The decision held that agencies have broad discretion to interpret statutes when congressional intent is unclear. Agencies may use that discretion to make policy choices within the boundaries the statute allows.

  A third Supreme Court case, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, addressed nuclear power plant licensing. The Court upheld a Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule. That rule held that the permanent storage of nuclear waste should be assumed to carry no environmental impact during the licensing process.

  The NRDC's legal work in the courts ran alongside its campaigns against specific energy projects, most notably in the nuclear power sector.

• 5. The Nuclear Dilemma

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  Through the 1970s, the NRDC worked to block expansion of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York. That campaign continued for decades. Indian Point eventually ceased operations in 2021. The NRDC has also sought the closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California.

  Its public argument against nuclear power rests on two concerns: the hazards of nuclear waste and the risks of nuclear proliferation. The organization has maintained that nuclear power is not a viable tool for addressing climate change.

  In 2018, the picture grew more complicated. New Jersey put forward legislative proposals to subsidize three of its nuclear reactors. The NRDC took no position on those proposals. That neutrality contrasted with its active opposition elsewhere.

  The most direct explanation for the NRDC's nuclear stance came from Frances Beinecke in 2014. She was then serving as president. Beinecke said plainly that the NRDC could not support nuclear power because it would lose donations. That statement distinguished between scientific judgment and institutional practicality in a way the organization rarely made explicit.

  The organization's stance on nuclear power was only one of several energy positions that brought it into unexpected conflict with other environmental advocates.

• 6. Against the Current

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  In 2012, the NRDC sued the federal government to halt construction of the Calico solar station in California's Mojave Desert. The planned facility would have generated 663.5 megawatts. The NRDC argued it would endanger protected wildlife.

  A decade later, the organization drew criticism from other environmentalists for the opposite stance. In 2022, the NRDC called for reductions in California's subsidies for rooftop solar power. The NRDC had itself described rooftop solar as playing an 'essential role in our shared mission to confront the climate crisis.' Its call for subsidy cuts struck critics as working against that stated commitment.

  On hydropower, the NRDC holds a firm position: it does not classify hydropower as a renewable energy source. When Indian Point was scheduled for closure, a proposal emerged to build a transmission line to Quebec to access surplus hydropower. The NRDC held no position on the line. Its stated reason was that it would not get behind hydropower where, in the organization's words, it 'gobbles up the space we think should be covered by true renewables.'

  These debates over specific energy technologies unfolded across the tenures of five presidents, each of whom shaped the NRDC's public profile in distinct ways.

• 7. Voices at the Helm

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  John H. Adams served as the NRDC's first president and held that position until 2006. Frances Beinecke succeeded him and led the organization from 2006 to 2015. Rhea Suh then served from 2015 to 2019.

  In 2020, Gina McCarthy became the NRDC's CEO and president. McCarthy had previously led the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama. In 2021, she left the NRDC to serve as White House National Climate Advisor in the Biden administration. Manish Bapna was selected as her replacement. Bapna came from the World Resources Institute.

  Alongside its legal and policy work, the NRDC has maintained a publishing presence dating to 1979. That year it launched The Amicus Journal, a quarterly magazine devoted to environmental challenges. In 1983, The Amicus Journal won the George Polk Award for special interest reporting. The publication later changed its name to onEarth and continued until 2016.

  The NRDC's Center for Campaigns and Organizing oversees a related entity called the NRDC Action Fund. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, the Action Fund can engage directly in political and electoral activities, extending the organization's reach well beyond the courtroom.