Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 505.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

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CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Opinion of Scalia, J.

River at any price that Snake River could afford—and the
impossible cannot be made “more difﬁcult.” All we know is
that a potential seller was “interested” in talking about the
subject before the President’s action, and that after the Pres-
ident’s action Snake River itself decided to proceed no fur-
If this establishes a “likelihood” that Snake River
ther.
would have made a bargain purchase but for the President’s
action, or even a “likelihood” that the President’s action
rendered “more difﬁcult” a purchase that was realistically
within Snake River’s grasp, then we must adopt for our
standing jurisprudence a new deﬁnition of likely: “plausible.”
Twice before have we addressed whether plaintiffs had
standing to challenge the Government’s tax treatment of a
third party, and twice before have we held that the specula-
tive nature of a third party’s response to changes in federal
tax laws defeats standing.
In Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare
Rights, 426 U. S. 26 (1976), we found it “purely speculative
whether the denials of service . . . fairly can be traced to [the
IRS’s] ‘encouragement’ or instead result from decisions made
by the hospitals without regard to the tax implications.”
Id., at 42–43. We found it “equally speculative whether the
desired exercise of the court’s remedial powers in this suit
would result in the availability to respondents of such serv-
ices.”
In Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737 (1984),
we held that parents of black children attending public
schools lacked standing to challenge IRS policies concerning
tax exemptions for private schools. The parents alleged,
inter alia, that “federal tax exemptions to racially discrimi-
natory private schools in their communities impair their abil-
ity to have their public schools desegregated.”
Id., at 752–
753. We concluded that “the injury alleged is not fairly
traceable to the Government conduct . . . challenge[d] as un-
lawful,” id., at 757, and that “it is entirely speculative . . .
whether withdrawal of a tax exemption from any particular
school would lead the school to change its policies,” id., at
758. Likewise, here, it is purely speculative whether a tax

Id., at 43.