Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
Page Number: 21

Cite as:  549 U. S. ____ (2007) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

prove  that  if  he  had  received  the  procedure  the  substan-
tive result would have been altered.  All that is necessary 
is  to  show  that  the  procedural  step  was  connected  to  the 
substantive result”).

Only  one  of  the  petitioners  needs  to  have  standing  to
permit us to consider the petition for review.  See Rumsfeld 
v.  Forum  for  Academic  and  Institutional  Rights,  Inc.,  547 
U. S. 47, 52, n. 2 (2006).  We stress here, as did Judge Tatel
below,  the  special  position  and  interest  of  Massachusetts.
It  is  of  considerable  relevance  that  the  party  seeking  re-
view here is a sovereign State and not, as it was in Lujan, 
a private individual. 

Well  before  the  creation  of  the  modern  administrative 
state,  we  recognized  that  States  are  not  normal  litigants
for  the  purposes  of  invoking  federal  jurisdiction.    As  Jus-
tice Holmes explained in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 
206 U. S. 230, 237 (1907), a case in which Georgia sought 
to protect its citizens from air pollution originating outside
its borders: 

“The case has been argued largely as if it were one
between  two  private  parties;  but  it  is  not.    The  very
elements that would be relied upon in a suit between
fellow-citizens  as  a  ground  for  equitable  relief  are 
wanting here.  The State owns very little of the terri-
tory alleged to be affected, and the damage to it capa-
ble  of  estimate  in  money,  possibly,  at  least,  is  small.
This is a suit by a State for an injury to it in its capac-
ity of quasi-sovereign.  In that capacity the State has
an interest independent of and behind the titles of its 
citizens, in all the earth and air within its domain.  It 
has the last word as to whether its mountains shall be 
stripped  of  their  forests  and  its  inhabitants  shall 
breathe pure air.” 

Just as Georgia’s “independent interest . . . in all the earth
and air within its domain” supported federal jurisdiction a