Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
Page Number: 23

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

17 

Opinion of the Court 

cedural  right  and  Massachusetts’  stake  in  protecting  its
quasi-sovereign interests, the Commonwealth is entitled to
special solicitude in our standing analysis.17 

—————— 

17 THE CHIEF JUSTICE accuses the Court of misreading Georgia v. Ten-
nessee  Copper  Co.,  206  U. S.  230  (1907),  see  post,  at  3–4  (dissenting
opinion),  and  “devis[ing]  a  new  doctrine  of  state  standing,”  id.,  at  15. 
But  no  less  an  authority  than  Hart  &  Wechsler’s  The  Federal  Courts 
and  the  Federal  System  understands  Tennessee  Copper  as  a  standing 
decision.    R.  Fallon,  D.  Meltzer,  &  D.  Shapiro,  Hart  &  Wechsler’s  The 
Federal Courts and the Federal System 290 (5th ed. 2003).  Indeed, it 
devotes  an  entire  section  to  chronicling  the  long  development  of  cases 
permitting  States  “to  litigate  as  parens  patriae  to  protect  quasi-
sovereign interests—i.e., public or governmental interests that concern 
the  state  as  a  whole.”  Id.,  at  289;  see,  e.g.,  Missouri  v.  Illinois,  180 
U. S.  208,  240–241  (1901)  (finding  federal  jurisdiction  appropriate  not
only  “in  cases  involving  boundaries  and  jurisdiction  over  lands  and 
their  inhabitants,  and  in  cases  directly  affecting  the  property  rights
and interests of a state,” but also when the “substantial impairment of
the  health  and  prosperity  of  the  towns  and  cities  of  the  state”  are  at
stake).
  Drawing on Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923), and Alfred 
L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez, 458 U. S. 592 (1982) 
(citing  Missouri  v.  Illinois,  180  U. S.  208  (1901)),  THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE 
claims that we “overloo[k] the fact that our cases cast significant doubt 
on  a  State’s  standing  to  assert  a  quasi-sovereign  interest  . . .  against
the Federal Government.”  Post, at 5.  Not so.  Mellon itself disavowed 
any such broad reading when it noted that the Court had been “called 
upon  to  adjudicate,  not  rights  of  person  or  property,  not  rights  of 
dominion  over  physical  domain,  [and]  not  quasi  sovereign  rights  actu-
ally  invaded  or  threatened.”    262  U. S.,  at  484–485  (emphasis  added). 
In any event, we held in Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439, 
447  (1945),  that  there  is  a  critical  difference  between  allowing  a  State
“to protect her citizens from the operation of federal statutes” (which is
what  Mellon  prohibits)  and  allowing  a  State  to  assert  its  rights  under
federal law (which it has standing to do).  Massachusetts does not here 
dispute that the Clean Air Act applies to its citizens; it rather seeks to 
assert  its  rights  under  the  Act.    See  also  Nebraska  v.  Wyoming,  515 
U. S. 1, 20 (1995) (holding that Wyoming had standing to bring a cross-
claim  against  the  United  States  to  vindicate  its  “ ‘quasi-sovereign’ 
interests which are ‘independent of and behind the titles of its citizens,
in all the earth and air within its domain’ ” (quoting Tennessee Copper, 
206 U. S., at 237)).