holding that there could be no presumption of irreparable harm based on a statutory violation, yet finding that “[ejnvironmental injury, by its nature, can seldom be adequately remedied by money damages and is often permanent or at least of long duration, i.e., irreparable. If such injury is sufficiently likely ... the balance of harms will usually favor issuance of the injunction to protect the environment.”
How later courts described this case
- holding that there could be no presumption of irreparable harm based on a statutory violation, yet finding that “[ejnvironmental injury, by its nature, can seldom be adequately remedied by money damages and is often permanent or at least of long duration, i.e., irreparable. If such injury is sufficiently likely ... the balance of harms will usually favor issuance of the injunction to protect the environment.”
- holding that a District Court did not err in declining to issue an injunction to bar exploratory drilling on Alaskan publie lands, because the District Court’s decision “did not undermine” the policy of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, 16 U. S. C. §3120, and because the Secretary of the Interior had other means of meaningfully complying with the statute
- holding that in deciding whether to grant preliminary injunctive relief for violations of an environmental statute, it is error to “foeus[] on the statutory procedure rather than on the underlying substantive policy the process was designed to effect”
- recognizing that the standard for a permanent injunction is essentially the same as for a preliminary injunction with the exception that the plaintiff must show actual success on the merits rather than a mere likelihood of success
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Reported abrogated in part, on other grounds by Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008) — not on the Supreme Court's list
480 U.S. 531, 545 (1987), abrogated in part on other grounds by Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20
Supreme Court of the United StatesNov 12, 20084 citing opinionsother groundsin partunconfirmed confidenceRead it
The opinion
Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Given the Court’s holding that § 810 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), 94 Stat. 2371 , 16 U. S. C. § 3120 , does not apply to the Outer Continental Shelf, it is unnecessary to decide whether the Court of Appeals applied the proper standard in determining the *556 availability of injunctive relief. * Accordingly, I join only Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion.
Indeed, the Court itself recognizes this when it declines to reach two additional questions that were presented in the petition. See ante, at 534-535, n. 1. This is not a case in which discussion of a nonessential issue is arguably appropriate because the lower court is likely to employ the identical legal analysis on remand. Even if, in light of the decisions in this case and the cross-petition, the Court of Appeals finds that respondents retain aboriginal rights in the Outer Continental Shelf, it would apparently not apply the same injunctive relief standard that it applied with relation to ANILCA. The special injunctive standard applied to the ANILCA claim was based on Circuit precedent providing that, absent unusual circumstances, “[a]n injunction is the appropriate remedy for a substantive procedural violation of an environmental statute.” People of Gambell v. Hodel, 774 F. 2d 1414 , 1422 (1985) (emphasis added). See generally Save Our Ecosystems v. Clark, 747 F. 2d 1240, 1250 (CA9 1984). There is no reason to believe that this rule would be extended to injunctions designed to prevent interference with aboriginal rights.