Supreme Court Hears Whales Case Today
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a case that pits the preservation of whales against the president’s powers in wartime.
The administration contends the president has the power to override environmental laws cited by a federal appeals court in a ruling requiring the Navy to limit its use of sonar in naval training exercises, the Associated Press reports. The lawsuit contends the sonar can cause whales to beach themselves.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed its ruling on the sonar issue pending resolution of the case in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The government’s brief says the 9th Circuit decision limiting sonar “conflicts with the collective judgment of Congress, the president, the nation’s top naval officers and the federal agency charged by Congress with protecting marine mammals,” according to an account in the Christian Science Monitor.
