What the NRDC Does

NRDC's website: www.nrdc.org

For more than three decades, NRDC has fought successfully to defend wilderness and wildlife and to protect clean air, clean water and a healthy environment. On this page are some key victories NRDC and our members have achieved.

1971 - NRDC wins passage of the Clean Water Act, which allows citizens to sue polluters directly

1973 - NRDC begins action that wins phase-out of lead in U.S. gasoline

1976 - NRDC litigation wins limits on water pollution for 24 major industries

1978 - NRDC wins fight to remove ozone depleting CFCs from aerosol cans

1978 - NRDC launches fight against acid rain through lawsuit which cuts sulphur dioxide emissions by a million tons annually

1980 - NRDC leadership helps win federal protection for one hundred million acres of Alaskan lands

1984 - NRDC wins litigation to compel the Department of Energy to comply with environmental laws at all of their nuclear weapons facilities

1985 - NRDC helps win adoption of national efficiency standards for consumer appliances, saving billions of dollars in electrical bills

1987 - NRDC initiative leads to International Treaty to save ozone layer

1987 - NRDC lawsuit forces Bethlehem Steel to pay $1.5 million in penalties for water pollution

1991 - NRDC helps defeat U.S. Senate bill that would open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to unnecessary oil drilling

1993 - NRDC legal action forces two oil giants, ARCO and Texaco, to cease water pollution and pay stiff fines for past violations

1994 - NRDC saves eastern North America's largest untouched wilderness by helping the Cree defeat the James Bay hydro-electric project

1999 - NRDC helps win commitments from over 200 companies, including Kinko's, 3M, Starbucks, and Home Depot, to help save temperate rainforests by phasing out their use and sale of old-growth wood products

2000 - NRDC's worldwide campaign forces the Mitsubishi Corporation to abandon its plan to construct a massive salt factory next to the last unspoiled breeding ground of the gray whale

2001 - NRDC helps secure an agreement among logging companies, environmentalists, native peoples and the government of British Columbia to protect millions of acres of the Great Bear Rainforest -- home of the rare white Spirit Bear -- from logging.

2002 - Working with a coalition of environmental groups, NRDC goes to federal court and blocks the Bush administration from allowing oil exploration in thousands of acres of public wildlands next to Arches National Park in Utah.

2003 - NRDC wins a federal court case stopping the worldwide deployment of a Navy sonar system that would have blasted oceans with noise so intense it could maim, deafen and kill whales.

2004 - NRDC takes the Bush administration to court and blocks its dangerous plan to allow 20,000 aging power plants, refineries and factories to spew millions of tons of pollution into our air.

2005 - NRDC staves off the Bush administration's attempts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

2006 - NRDC legal action leads the Bush administration to propose protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act -- a crucial first step toward saving the bear from the ravages of global warming.