The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the long-running dispute over the Navy’s use of mid-frequency active sonar off the coast of Southern California. Environmentalists and wildlife advocates argued that restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar imposed by lower-court judges should be upheld — at least until the Navy conducts its required environmental impact statement — citing sonar’s track record of seriously messing with whales and other marine mammals. Predictably, the Navy argues that halting or restricting sonar training exercises in any way harms national security. If the judges’ comments are any indication, the court is likely to rule in the Navy’s favor this spring. Justice Samuel Alito wondered aloud how a lone judge could ever restrict anything the Navy does, Justice Antonin Scalia characterized the required-but-still-not-done environmental impact statement as “procedural,” Chief Justice John Roberts said that if the Navy didn’t train with active sonar, another Pearl Harbor-type attack would likely happen, and even Justice Stephen Breyer said, “The whole point of the armed forces is to hurt the environment. You go on a bombing mission — do they have to prepare an environmental impact statement first?”
