Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
Page Number: 53

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

15 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

Perhaps  the  Court  recognizes  as  much.    How  else  to 
explain its need to devise a new doctrine of state standing
to  support  its  result?    The  good  news  is  that  the  Court’s
“special  solicitude”  for  Massachusetts  limits  the  future 
applicability of the diluted standing requirements applied 
in  this  case.  The  bad  news  is  that  the  Court’s  self-
professed  relaxation  of  those  Article  III  requirements  has 
caused  us  to  transgress  “the  proper—and  properly  lim-
ited—role of the courts in a democratic society.”  Allen, 468 
U. S., at 750 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

I respectfully dissent. 

—————— 

troubling.  Even  in  SCRAP,  the  Court  noted  that  what  was  required 
was  “something  more  than  an  ingenious  academic  exercise  in  the 
conceivable,”  412  U. S.,  at  688,  and  we  have  since  understood  the 
allegation  there  to  have  been  “that  the  string  of  occurrences  alleged
would happen immediately,” Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 159 
(1990) (emphasis added).  That is hardly the case here. 

The Court says it is “quite wrong” to compare petitioners’ challenging 
“EPA’s  parsimonious  construction  of  the  Clean  Air  Act  to  a  mere 
‘lawyer’s game.’ ”  Ante, at 24, n. 24.  Of course it is not the legal chal-
lenge  that  is  merely  “an  ingenious  academic  exercise  in  the  conceiv-
able,”  SCRAP,  supra,  at  688,  but  the  assertions  made  in  support  of 
standing.