Natural Resources Defense Council

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) was founded in 1970 as an environmental action organization by a group of American attorneys and law students. Several New York City lawyers, who sought to block construction of a Consolidated Edison power plant at Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River, established the Natural Resources Defense League and hired John H. Adams as its first executive director. The organization soon changed its name to the Natural Resources Defense Council, and, at the recommendation of the Ford Foundation, merged with a group of law students, most from Yale University, who wanted to establish a public interest law firm that represented victims of pollution.

With initial funding from the Ford Foundation, NRDC opened its first office in New York City and established a Board of Trustees. Originally structured like a traditional law firm, NRDC’s senior attorneys operated as partners. The organization focused its early efforts on litigation to ensure the enforcement of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Clean Water Act, passed in 1972. In 1971, the organization’s first lawsuit challenged strip-mining by the Tennessee Valley Authority. NRDC opened a second office in Washington, DC, and by 1972 had a third office in Palo Alto, California, which later moved to San Francisco. NRDC combined scientific expertise with the option to litigate and developed ongoing public education efforts to influence public policy and legislation. In 1973, the group hired its first staff scientists to provide thorough scientific analysis of environmental harm and offer feasible remedies to significant environmental problems. NRDC also added a membership component to the organization and had 18,000 members by 1974. In 1979, NRDC began publishing its environmental magazine The Amicus Journal .

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