[CPEO-MEF] BIOTA - Court denies Navy sonar exemption

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Judge rejects Navy request for sonar training exemption
Ruling upholds court- ordered protections for whales and dolphins.

By Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angeles Times
February 5, 2008

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday rejected the Bush 
administration's attempt to exempt Navy sonar training from key 
environmental laws, saying that there's no real emergency to justify 
overruling court-ordered protections for whales and dolphins.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper also suggested that President 
Bush's effort to maneuver around an earlier federal court order was 
"constitutionally suspect," although she made no ruling on that issue.

The 36-page order means the Navy will have to follow Cooper's previous 
injunction forbidding the use of powerful submarine-detecting sonar in 
areas where whales are abundant, such as within 12 nautical miles of the 
coast and between Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sonar5feb05,1,5010590.story

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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