Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 504

524US2

Unit: $U93

[09-11-00 13:25:42] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

459

Opinion of Scalia, J.

Nor does it even say that the President’s action caused IPP
to reconsider. Moreover, it was Snake River, not IPP, that
terminated the discussions. According to Cranney, “[t]he
President’s cancellation of the Cooperative Tax Act caused
me to terminate discussions with Phillips about the possibil-
ity of Snake River Potato Growers buying the Idaho Potato
Packers facility.”
Id., at 114. So all we know from the rec-
ord is that Snake River had two discussions with IPP con-
cerning the sale of its processing facility on the tax deferred
basis the Act would allow; that IPP was interested; and that
Snake River ended the discussions after the President’s ac-
tion. We do not know that Snake River was prepared to
offer a price—tax deferral or no—that would cross IPP’s
laugh threshold. We do not even know for certain that the
tax deferral was a signiﬁcant attraction to IPP; we know
only that Cranney thought it was. On these facts—which
never even bring things to the point of bargaining—it is pure
conjecture to say that Snake River suffered an impaired bar-
gaining position. As we have said many times, conjectural
or hypothetical injuries do not sufﬁce for Article III stand-
ing. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560
(1992).

Nor has Snake River demonstrated, as the Court ﬁnds,
that “the cancellation inﬂicted a sufﬁcient likelihood of eco-
nomic injury to establish standing under our precedents.”
Ante, at 432. Presumably the economic injury the Court
has in mind is Snake River’s loss of a bargain purchase of a
processing plant. But there is no evidence, and indeed not
even an allegation, that before the President’s action such a
purchase was likely. The most that Snake River alleges is
that the President’s action rendered it “more difﬁcult for
plaintiffs to purchase qualiﬁed processors,” App. 12. And
even if that abstract “increased difﬁculty” sufﬁced for
injury in fact (which it does not), the existence of even that
is pure speculation. For all that appears, no owner of a
processing plant would have been willing to sell to Snake