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MASSACHUSETTS v. EPA 

Syllabus 

to persuade key developing nations to reduce emissions.

Petitioners,  now  joined  by  intervenor  Massachusetts  and  other 
state and local governments, sought review in the D. C. Circuit.  Al-
though each of the three judges on the panel wrote separately, two of
them agreed that the EPA  Administrator properly exercised his dis-
cretion in denying the rulemaking petition.  One judge concluded that 
the Administrator’s exercise of “judgment” as to whether a pollutant
could  “reasonably  be  anticipated  to  endanger  public  health  or  wel-
fare,” §7521(a)(1), could be based on scientific uncertainty as well as
other factors, including the concern that unilateral U. S. regulation of 
motor-vehicle  emissions  could  weaken  efforts  to  reduce  other  coun-
tries’  greenhouse  gas  emissions.    The  second  judge  opined  that  peti-
tioners  had  failed  to  demonstrate  the  particularized  injury  to  them 
that is necessary to establish standing under Article III, but accepted
the contrary view as the law of the case and joined the judgment on
the merits as the closest to that which he preferred.  The court there-
fore denied review. 

Held: 

1. Petitioners have standing to challenge the EPA’s denial of their

rulemaking petition.  Pp. 12–23. 

(a) This case suffers from none of the defects that would preclude
it  from  being  a  justiciable  Article  III  “Controvers[y].”    See,  e.g.,  Lu-
ther v. Borden, 7 How. 1.  Moreover, the proper construction of a con-
gressional statute is an eminently suitable question for federal-court
resolution,  and  Congress  has  authorized  precisely  this  type  of  chal-
lenge  to  EPA  action,  see  42  U. S. C.  §7607(b)(1).    Contrary  to  EPA’s
argument,  standing  doctrine  presents  no  insuperable  jurisdictional 
obstacle here.  To demonstrate standing, a litigant must show that it
has suffered a concrete and particularized injury that is either actual 
or imminent, that the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant, and
that a favorable decision will likely redress that injury.  See Lujan v. 
Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560–561.  However, a litigant to
whom  Congress  has  “accorded  a  procedural  right  to  protect  his  con-
crete interests,” id., at 573, n. 7—here, the right to challenge agency
action unlawfully withheld, §7607(b)(1)—“can assert that right with-
out meeting all the normal standards for redressability and immedi-
acy,”  ibid.  Only  one  petitioner  needs  to  have  standing  to  authorize 
review.  See  Rumsfeld  v.  Forum  for  Academic  and  Institutional 
Rights, Inc., 547 U. S. 47, 52, n. 2.  Massachusetts has a special posi-
tion and interest here.  It is a sovereign State and not, as in Lujan, a 
private  individual,  and  it  actually  owns  a  great  deal  of  the  territory 
alleged to be affected.  The sovereign prerogatives to force reductions 
in greenhouse gas emissions, to negotiate emissions treaties with de-
veloping countries, and (in some circumstances) to exercise the police