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18 

MASSACHUSETTS v. EPA 

Opinion of the Court 

With  that  in  mind,  it  is  clear  that  petitioners’  submis-
sions  as  they  pertain  to  Massachusetts  have  satisfied  the 
most  demanding  standards  of  the  adversarial  process. 
EPA’s  steadfast  refusal  to  regulate  greenhouse  gas  emis-
sions  presents  a  risk  of  harm  to  Massachusetts  that  is
both  “actual”  and  “imminent.”    Lujan,  504  U. S.,  at  560 
(internal quotation marks omitted).  There is, moreover, a 
“substantial  likelihood  that  the  judicial  relief  requested”
will  prompt  EPA  to  take  steps  to  reduce  that  risk.    Duke 
Power  Co.  v.  Carolina  Environmental  Study  Group,  Inc., 
438 U. S. 59, 79 (1978). 

The Injury 

The  harms  associated  with  climate  change  are  serious
and  well  recognized. 
Indeed,  the  NRC  Report  itself—
which  EPA  regards  as  an  “objective  and  independent
assessment of the relevant science,” 68 Fed. Reg. 52930—
identifies  a  number  of  environmental  changes  that  have
already  inflicted  significant  harms,  including  “the  global
retreat  of  mountain  glaciers,  reduction  in  snow-cover
extent, the earlier spring melting of rivers and lakes, [and]
the  accelerated  rate  of  rise  of  sea  levels  during  the  20th 
century  relative  to  the  past  few  thousand  years . . . .” 
NRC Report 16. 

Petitioners  allege  that  this  only  hints  at  the  environ-
mental  damage  yet  to  come.    According  to  the  climate 
scientist Michael MacCracken, “qualified scientific experts
involved  in  climate  change  research”  have  reached  a
“strong consensus” that global warming threatens (among 
other things) a precipitate rise in sea levels by the end of 
the  century,  MacCracken  Decl.  ¶15,  Stdg.  App.  207,  “se-
vere  and  irreversible  changes  to  natural  ecosystems,”  id., 
¶5(d),  at  209,  a  “significant  reduction  in  water  storage  in
winter  snowpack  in  mountainous  regions  with  direct  and
important  economic  consequences,”  ibid.,  and  an  increase 
in  the  spread  of  disease,  id.,  ¶28,  at  218–219.    He  also