The Issue of Sonar Testing Makes it all the way to the Supreme Court

The issue of the Navy's sonar testing is one that often makes it to our daily papers. As recently as this August , the Navy was given the go-ahead to continue with the use of a low-frequency sonar in Hawaiian waters (even without an EIS). This occurred despite the better judgment of several environmental groups. 

Our marine mammals, including those once endangered whales and mystical dolphins,  communicate and navigate themselves using underwater sonar. So when the Navy uses the sonar in their waters, it screws them up to say the least. But our conservative daily papers seem to not see it that way. 

A column in our own Honolulu Advertiser quoted a press release put out by the Navy saying that "While great progress has been made in recent years, many of the speakers noted that much remains to be learned about how sound behaves underwater and how it affects marine mammals" (Feb. 11, 2008). 

That's funny, because Justice Kendall one of the Supreme Court Justices now involved in the case himself says, "The evidence is overwhelming that beaked whales are being stranded by sonar and killed. Autopsies show they are hemorrhaging and dying."

After Justice Florence Marie-Cooper of California's liberal 9th circuit court barred the Navy from sonar testing because it had not completed an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the issue made its way to the Supreme Court where the familiar Bush appointees are now having a say on the fate of our whales. 

The comments being quoted of them (and all the other justices) are pretty ridiculous. 

"I am not getting it," said Justice David Souter, who questioned the White House move to intervene in the matter. 

Said Justice Steven, one of the court's liberal justices: "You need an EIS... because you don't know what environmental consequences may ensue. That's the purpose."

When Robert Kendall, the attorney representing the Natural Resources Defense Council, accused the Navy of "having it its way or no way", Bush appointee Justice Roberts channeled his inner middle schooler and called the comment "very unfair."

Justice Breyer, another one of the court's liberal judges, commented sagely, "You are asking us who know nothing about whales and less about the military... to figure out who's right?"

Ultimately the judges won't be making their decision on whether they side with the whales or with the navy; they shouldn't be anyway. The conservative justices will likely say that Justice Marie-Cooper was out of line when she stepped in to order to injunction and the liberal justices will likely say that the Bush administration was being out of line when it "moved to exempt the Navy from the relevant environmental laws by declaring the sonar training exercises essential to national security". And they will probably uphold Justice Marie-Cooper's decision because it was upholding existing environmental laws! 

All of the Justice's quotes above are from nbc4.com last updated Oct. 12 2008. <http://www.nbc4.com/goinggreen/17681239/detail.html>