In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 99-4141

Area Transportation, Inc.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

Joel P. Ettinger, Regional Administrator

of the Federal Transit Administration for Region

V, United States Department of Transportation,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 99 C 3287--Ruben Castillo, Judge.

Argued April 18, 2000--Decided July 18, 2000

 Before Flaum, Ripple, and Williams, Circuit Judges.

 Flaum, Circuit Judge. Area Transportation, Inc.

("Area Transport") filed suit against the Federal

Transit Administration ("FTA"), seeking (1) a

declaration that a non-party bus service is

ineligible for future grants due to past

violations of a grant condition; and (2) an order

directing the federal agency to require the nonparty grantee to repay all transit assistance

funds that it received while in violation of the

grant agreement. The district court dismissed the

suit for lack of standing, and we affirm.

Background

 Area Transport is a privately-owned provider of

school bus services in the Flint, Michigan area.

The FTA awards grants to assist state and local

agencies in financing the implementation and

operation of mass transportation facilities. To

receive a grant, a recipient must comply with

various conditions, including an agreement that

the recipient will not provide exclusive school

bus service in competition with a private (nongrant recipient) school bus company. See 49

U.S.C. sec. 5323(f)(1). 

 On August 18, 1998, Area Transport filed an

administrative complaint with the FTA Region V
Administrator. Area Transport alleged that a

grant recipient, Mass Transportation

Administration of Flint, Michigan ("MTA"), was

providing exclusive school bus service in

violation of the applicable prohibition.

 Following investigation, the FTA issued a

written decision on May 5, 1999, concluding that

MTA had violated the bus service prohibition. The

FTA ordered MTA "to cease and desist in providing

illegal service," and further held that failure

to comply with this order could lead to

additional penalties.

 Shortly thereafter, Area Transport filed suit in

district court under the federal transit laws and

the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. sec.

701. The complaint alleged that the FTA did not

appropriately sanction MTA. Specifically, Area

Transport requested a declaration that MTA is

ineligible for future FTA grants and also sought

to have the district court compel the FTA to

order MTA to repay all grant funds received

during the period that it was in violation of the

non-compete grant agreement. The FTA moved to

dismiss, and the district court granted the

dismissal for lack of standing, finding that Area

Transport’s purported injury is not fairly

traceable to the FTA decision under review and

that the requested relief would not redress the

particular injury of which Area Transport

complains. Area Transport now appeals.

Discussion

 To establish standing under the Administrative

Procedure Act, a plaintiff must satisfy the

Article III constitutional standing requirements

and also fall within the "zone of interests" to

be protected or regulated by the regulatory

statute at issue. See Association of Data

Processing Serv. Orgs., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S.

150, 153 (1970); City of Evanston v. Regional

Transp. Auth., 825 F.2d 1121, 1123 (7th Cir.

1987). The district court in this case concluded

that Area Transport is in the class of entities

protected by sec. 5323(f), but then concluded

that Area Transport failed to meet the Article

III standing requirements.

 Article III standing requires a party to

demonstrate three elements: (1) that it suffered

an "injury in fact"--an invasion of a legally

recognized interest that is concrete and

particularized, actual or imminent, and not

conjectural or hypothetical; (2) that there is a

causal link between that injury and the

defendant’s action, such that the injury is

fairly traceable to the action complained of and

not the result of actions by some third party not
before the court; and (3) that a favorable

decision will likely redress the injury. See

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env.

Servs., Inc., 120 S.Ct. 693, 704 (2000);

Wisconsin v. FERC, 192 F.3d 642, 646 (7th Cir.

1999). The district court found that Area

Transport has adequately shown an injury in fact-

-that it suffered harm to its "competitive

interest" because of the improper federal grants

to MTA-- but it found Area Transport’s showing

with respect to the second and third standing

requirements lacking. Although the FTA disputes

on appeal whether Area Transport’s purported

injury is legally cognizable, we need not reach

that issue because we agree with the district

court that Area Transport has failed to meet the

causation and redressability prongs of standing.

 Area Transport’s argument begins with its

allegation that MTA unfairly built a strong

competitive position in the Flint area school bus

service market because for a period of time it

was able both to receive federal grants and to

operate a school bus service. According to Area

Transport, because MTA has improperly obtained a

strong market position, the FTA’s failure to go

beyond a cease and desist order and to require

repayment of previous, unlawfully obtained grants

is a cause of Area Transport’s ongoing injury to

its "competitive interests." Only a declaration

that the FTA must seek from MTA repayment of

prior grants and must deny MTA any future grants

will level the competitive playing field.

 In this case, the propositions that the FTA’s

decision and remedy cause Area Transport economic

injury and that imposing harsher penalties

against MTA will alleviate this injury are too

speculative to satisfy the standing requirements.

See Simmons v. ICC, 900 F.2d 1023, 1026 (7th Cir.

1990) (holding that the petitioners failed to

make a sufficient showing that their competitive

injury was fairly traceable to the ICC’s action).

The FTA’s ruling already requires MTA to cease

providing illegal school bus service if it wants

federal grants. Assuming for the purposes of

argument that Area Transport still demonstrates

a continuing injury in fact, causation in this

case requires showing that such injury is fairly

traceable to the FTA’s decision not to impose

harsher sanctions than it did. There is no

indication in the record that, since the FTA

issued its cease and desist order, MTA is still

even competing with Area Transport./1

Presumably--and Area Transport’s complaint and

other filings below leave us in the position of

having to presume--Area Transport is concerned

that MTA can now compete with Area Transport in

the exclusive school busing market having already

fattened its coffers with improper federal funds.
But to the extent that such an outcome requires

not only that MTA react to the FTA’s cease and

desist order by forgoing future federal grants in

favor of continuing its school bus service, but

also that MTA do so successfully, this scenario

is both highly speculative and dependent on

uncertain actions by MTA, who is not before us.

See Perry v. Village of Arlington Heights, 186

F.3d 826, 829 (7th Cir. 1999) (explaining that

standing requires "a causal relationship between

the injury and the challenged conduct, such that

the injury can be fairly traced to the challenged

action of the defendant and not from the

independent action of some third party not before

the court").

 Area Transport’s failure to demonstrate

redressability also stems from the vagueness and

severe uncertainty of this causal chain. The

requirement of "’actual injury redressable by the

court,’ . . . tends to assure that the legal

questions presented to the court will be resolved

. . . in a concrete factual context conducive to

a realistic appreciation of the consequences of

judicial action." Valley Forge Christian College

v. Americans United for Separation of Church and

State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472 (1982) (citations

omitted). As the district court pointed out, any

potential repayment of grant monies would go to

the FTA, not to Area Transport. Perhaps the

disgorgement of MTA’s improper monies would

negatively impact MTA’s business, but the

prospect that Area Transport will at that point

find itself in a stronger position to win future

service bids is pure conjecture. See Lujan v.

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992)

("it must be ’likely,’ as opposed to merely

’speculative,’ that the injury will be ’redressed

by a favorable decision’"); Harp Advertising

Ill., Inc. v. Village of Chicago Ridge, 9 F.3d

1290, 1292 (7th Cir. 1993) (stating that a key

ingredient of standing is a demonstration by the

plaintiff that his injury likely will be

redressed by a favorable decision)./2

Ironically, the remedy Area Transport seeks--that

MTA be barred from receiving future federal

transportation grants--might very well undermine

Area Transport’s market position. As it stands,

MTA is currently prohibited under the statute and

the FTA’s order from providing exclusive school

bus services so long as it continues to receive

federal grants. If MTA were barred from receiving

those grants, it would have greater freedom to

compete with Area Transport. We agree with the

district court that Area Transport has not

established causation or redressability, and

accordingly the case was properly dismissed./3

Conclusion
 For the reasons stated herein, we AFFIRM the

decision of the district court.

/1 Area Transport refers us to Bradford School Bus

Transit, Inc. v. Chicago Transit Authority, 537

F.2d 943 (7th Cir. 1976), where we held that a

private bus company had standing to sue a city

transit authority and the Urban Mass

Transportation Administration (UMTA), seeking a

declaration that the transit authority was

engaged in school bus operations in violation of

the Urban Mass Transportation Act. That case

differs from this one, among other reasons,

because Bradford could point to particular

contracts for which it had bid but that were

awarded to CTA and because the UMTA was

continuing to provide grants to CTA when CTA was

still providing school bus service in violation

of the non-compete agreement. Here, Area

Transport does not claim that the FTA is

overlooking a current violation of federal

regulations by MTA.

/2 This case is distinguishable from such cases as

American Federation of Gov’t Employees v. Cohen,

171 F.3d 460 (7th Cir. 1999), and Safir v.

Gibson, 417 F.2d 972 (2d Cir. 1969), in which

this Court and the Second Circuit concluded that

injuries to competitive interests were

redressable through re-bidding on contracts and

disgorgement, respectively. The Cohen court so

concluded only after finding that the plaintiff’s

allegations established "a good chance of gaining

some of this work," and distinguishing that case

from the D.C. Circuit’s decision in National

Maritime Union of America v. Commander, Military

Sealift Command, 824 F.3d 1228 (D.C. Cir. 1987),

which was read to stand for the proposition that

the redressability requirement was not met where

the record did not even suggest that the employer

of union members would participate in re-bidding

after the union challenged the bidding process.

171 F.3d at 467. The Safir opinion deals only

with standing to sue under the statute at issue,

not the constitutional standing requirements, and

the court in that case based its rulings on

several particular factual allegations by the

plaintiff regarding its future business

activities. 417 F.2d at 977-78.

/3 Having concluded that Area Transport lacks

standing, we need not consider the FTA’s claims

on appeal that there is no private right of

action under sec. 5323(f) to seek review of

sanctions imposed against a competitor or that

the FTA’s decision is discretionary and

unreviewable under the APA.