Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 477

524US2

Unit: $U93

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432

CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Opinion of the Court

The Snake River farmers’ cooperative also suffered an im-
mediate injury when the President canceled the limited tax
beneﬁt that Congress had enacted to facilitate the acquisition
of processing plants. Three critical facts identify the speci-
ﬁcity and the importance of that injury. First, Congress
enacted § 968 for the speciﬁc purpose of providing a beneﬁt
to a deﬁned category of potential purchasers of a deﬁned cat-
egory of assets.20 The members of that statutorily deﬁned
class received the equivalent of a statutory “bargaining chip”
to use in carrying out the congressional plan to facilitate
their purchase of such assets. Second, the President se-
lected § 968 as one of only two tax beneﬁts in the Taxpayer
Relief Act of 1997 that should be canceled. The cancellation
rested on his determination that the use of those bargaining
chips would have a signiﬁcant impact on the federal budget
deﬁcit. Third, the Snake River cooperative was organized
for the very purpose of acquiring processing facilities, it had
concrete plans to utilize the beneﬁts of § 968, and it was en-
gaged in ongoing negotiations with the owner of a processing
plant who had expressed an interest in structuring a tax-
deferred sale when the President canceled § 968. Moreover,
it is actively searching for other processing facilities for pos-
sible future purchase if the President’s cancellation is re-
versed; and there are ample processing facilities in the State
that Snake River may be able to purchase.21 By depriving
them of their statutory bargaining chip, the cancellation
inﬂicted a sufﬁcient likelihood of economic injury to estab-
lish standing under our precedents. See, e. g., Investment

on the prospective actions of Rochester ofﬁcials.
Id., at 509. Appellees’
injury in this case, however, does not turn on the independent actions of
third parties, as existing New York law will automatically require that
appellees reimburse the State.

Because both the City of New York and the health care appellees have
standing, we need not consider whether the appellee unions also have
standing to sue. See, e. g., Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 721 (1986).

20 See n. 5, supra.
21 App. 111–115 (Declaration of Mike Cranney).