## Facts

- Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental organizations, along with Jean‑Michel Cousteau, sued federal officials from the Department of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and also sued the U.S. Navy and related officials.
- The dispute arose from federal approvals allowing the Navy to use the SURTASS Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar system for peacetime training, testing, and routine operations across large ocean areas (described in the litigation as reaching up to roughly 75% of the world’s oceans).
- Plaintiffs alleged that LFA sonar’s low-frequency, high‑intensity transmissions could injure, kill, or harass marine mammals and other ocean species, including threatened or endangered species.
- Plaintiffs challenged the authorizations and environmental review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and substantive environmental statutes, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
- The Navy argued that restricting peacetime use of LFA sonar would harm national security because realistic training and testing were needed for military readiness and to detect increasingly quiet submarines.
- The case proceeded through preliminary relief and then to merits review on an administrative record, with the parties seeking final relief that would either bar or tightly limit peacetime LFA sonar use.
- In connection with remedy and injunctive relief, the parties submitted declarations addressing expected harms and public-interest effects, including military-readiness impacts.

## Issues

1. Did NMFS’s authorization of the Navy’s peacetime SURTASS LFA sonar program violate the MMPA, ESA, and/or NEPA, making the approvals unlawful under the APA?
2. If the approvals were unlawful, was permanent injunctive relief warranted, and how should the court balance environmental injury against asserted national-security harms when setting the terms of relief?
3. In deciding whether and how to issue injunctive relief, could the court consider evidence outside the administrative record (such as declarations about public-interest and readiness impacts)?

## Decision

- The court granted significant relief to plaintiffs, concluding that the challenged approvals and supporting analyses did not satisfy key requirements of the governing environmental statutes and therefore could not stand under APA review.
- The court issued permanent injunctive restrictions on the Navy’s peacetime use of SURTASS LFA sonar, limiting operations and imposing conditions intended to reduce harm to marine mammals and protected species while still allowing some testing and training under stricter safeguards.
- In shaping equitable relief, the court considered national-security arguments and evidence about military readiness, but determined that statutory compliance and the risk of harm to marine life required tighter limits than the government had adopted.
- For the injunction/public-interest analysis, the court permitted consideration of certain extra-record declarations addressing the magnitude of harm from an injunction, distinguishing the record-limited merits review from the forward-looking equitable assessment.

## Legal Principles

- Under the APA, courts generally review the legality of final agency action based on the administrative record before the agency at the time of decision, applying deferential review while requiring reasoned decisionmaking consistent with statutory limits.
- NEPA requires federal agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental consequences through an adequate environmental analysis (and, where required, an environmental impact statement), including reasonable consideration of effects and mitigation.
- The MMPA permits incidental take of marine mammals only subject to statutory conditions, including mitigation measures aimed at achieving the “least practicable adverse impact” on affected species and their habitat.
- The ESA requires that agency action not jeopardize listed species or adversely modify critical habitat, typically through consultation and enforceable protective measures.
- Permanent injunctive relief requires equitable analysis (including likelihood of continuing or future harm, balance of harms, and the public interest); when crafting remedy, a court may consider evidence relevant to prospective harms and public-interest effects even if merits review is otherwise record-based.
- National defense considerations are part of the public-interest inquiry, but they do not excuse noncompliance with binding environmental statutes; instead, they inform how relief is tailored once violations are found.

## Conclusion

Natural Resources Defense Council v. Evans, 364 F. Supp. 2d 1083 (N.D. Cal. 2003) addressed the Navy’s peacetime SURTASS LFA sonar program and held that the federal approvals were legally deficient under environmental statutes as reviewed through the APA, warranting permanent injunctive limits that reduced risks to marine mammals and protected species while accounting for asserted military-readiness needs in the terms of the remedy.


Natural Resources Defense Council v. Evans, 364 F. Supp. 2d 1083 (2003)