Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-12_m6hn.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

under the Government’s account, appellees have standing 
to  challenge  the  threatened  enforcement  of  Section  304.
The present inability of the Committee to repay and Cruz
to  recover  the  final  $10,000  Cruz  loaned  his  campaign  is, 
even if brought about by the agency’s threatened enforce-
ment of its regulation, traceable to the operation of Section
304 itself.  An agency, after all, “literally has no power to
act”—including  under  its  regulations—unless  and  until 
Congress authorizes it to do so by statute.  Louisiana Pub. 
Serv.  Comm’n  v.  FCC,  476  U. S.  355,  374  (1986);  see  also 
FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 
161  (2000).    An  agency’s  regulation  cannot  “operate  inde-
pendently of ” the statute that authorized it.  California v. 
Texas, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 15).  And here, 
the FEC’s 20-day rule was expressly promulgated to imple-
ment Section 304.  See 68 Fed. Reg. 3973 (2003).  Indeed, 
the  Government  admitted  at  oral  argument  that  it  could 
find no other basis to authorize enforcement of this regula-
tion,  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  5,  and  “concede[d]”  that  “the  most
likely result, if the statute were declared invalid, is that the
regulation would cease to be on the books or would cease to
be  enforceable,”  ibid.  Thus,  if  Section  304  is  invalid  and 
unenforceable—as  Cruz  and  the  Committee  contend—the 
agency’s 20-day rule is as well.  And the remedy appellees 
sought in the District Court—an order enjoining the Gov-
ernment  from  taking  any  action  to  enforce  the  loan-
repayment  limitation,  App.  27—would  redress  appellees’
harm  by  preventing  enforcement  of  the  agency’s  20-day 
rule.  See Lujan, 504 U. S., at 561. 

Contrary to the Government’s suggestion, the foregoing 
analysis  does  not  call  into  question  the  principle  that  “a 
plaintiff injured by one law does not thereby acquire stand-
ing to challenge a different law.”  Brief for Appellant 17.  It 
is true that a litigant cannot, “by virtue of his standing to
challenge  one  government  action,  challenge  other  govern-
mental actions that did not injure him.”  DaimlerChrysler