Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-58_i425.pdf
Page Number: 30

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

 GORSUCH, J., concurring
GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

Consider as well the larger statutory context.  Section 702 
restricts judicial review to “person[s]” who have “suffer[ed] 
legal  wrong  because  of  agency  action,  or  [been]  adversely 
affected or aggrieved by agency action.”  The provision also
instructs  that  “any  mandatory  or  injunctive  decree  shall 
specify the Federal officer or officers . . . personally respon-
sible for compliance.”  Here, it seems, Congress nodded to
traditional standing rules and remedial principles.  Yet un-
der the district court’s reading, we must suppose Congress 
proceeded just a few paragraphs later to plow right through
those  rules  and  empower  a  single  judge  to  award  a  novel
form of relief affecting parties and nonparties alike.

Then there is §703.  That is where the APA most clearly 
discusses remedies.  Section 703 authorizes aggrieved per-
sons to bring “any applicable form of legal action, including 
actions for declaratory judgments or writs of prohibitory or 
mandatory  injunction  or  habeas  corpus.”    Conspicuously
missing from the list is vacatur.  And what exactly would a
“form  of  legal  action”  seeking  vacatur  look  like  anyway?
Would it be a creature called a “writ of vacatur”?  Nobody
knows (or bothers to tell us).  Nor is it apparent why Con-
gress would have listed most remedies in §703 only to bury 
another (and arguably the most powerful one) in a later sec-
tion addressed to the scope of review.  Cf. J. Harrison, Sec-
tion 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act Does Not Call 
for Universal Injunctions or Other Universal Remedies, 37 
Yale J. Reg. Bull. 37, 37, 45–46 (2020). 

The  district  court’s  reading  of  “set  aside”  invites  still
other anomalies.  Section 706(2) governs all proceedings un-
der  the  APA.  Any  interpretation  of  “set  aside”  therefore 
must make sense in the context of an enforcement proceed-
ing, an action for a declaratory judgment, a suit for an in-
junction, or habeas.  See §703.  This poses a problem for the
district court’s interpretation, for no one thinks a court ad-
judicating  a  declaratory  action  or  a  habeas  petition  “va-
cates”  agency  action  along  the  way.    See  Brief  for  United