EDF is mostly play-acting at doing real environmental work. They view themselves as rainmakers, when, in reality, they're mostly just standing outside the halls of power shouting inanely. I worked on several efforts to challenge permits issued by USACE and state agencies with delegated EPA authority. Staff scurried around busily for weeks in prep for trial, thinking they were on the cusp of victory over the evil agencies. After our counsel got crushed in court by the agency SMEs, they consoled themselves by reassuring us all that we were fighting nobly against evil polluters, even though the agency folks were at least as committed to environmental quality as anyone on our staff.
EDF staff often loses in fights against government entities because they're blinded by their own arrogance. They think because they have a law degree or a bachelor's from Brown that the state is going to forfeit their position out of fear. In reality, we usually went to trial against SMEs who were at least as educated as our staff, and certainly more steeped in policy, given that they wrote it. And there was scant little effort to engage agency staff in discussion as people. I pushed for this, knowing that having some friendly contacts in government would have helped us immensely to understand policy and the soft spots in it. Moreover, I knew we needed to recruit some agency folks to come work on our side and bring their insider's knowledge with them. Nothing would have helped us more.
As it was, management seemed content to lose case after case in the district and administrative law courts. What EDF amounted to, then, was a convoluted means of spending the donations of their wealthy benefactors with nothing substantive to show for it, a farce of environmental advocacy.
