Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
Page Number: 44.0

6 

MASSACHUSETTS v. EPA 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

the  legion  of  amici  supporting  petitioners  ever  cited  the 
case.  And it presumably explains why not one of the three
judges writing below ever cited the case either.  Given that 
one  purpose  of  the  standing  requirement  is  “ ‘to  assure 
that  concrete  adverseness  which  sharpens  the  presenta-
tion of issues upon which the court so largely depends for
illumination,’ ” ante, at 13–14 (quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 
U. S.  186,  204  (1962)),  it  is  ironic  that  the  Court  today 
adopts  a  new  theory  of  Article  III  standing  for  States 
without the benefit of briefing or argument on the point.1 

II 

It is not at all clear how the Court’s “special solicitude” 
for  Massachusetts  plays  out  in  the  standing  analysis,
except  as  an  implicit  concession  that  petitioners  cannot 
establish standing on traditional terms.  But the status of 
Massachusetts as a State cannot compensate for petition-
ers’  failure  to  demonstrate  injury  in  fact,  causation,  and 
redressability.

When  the  Court  actually  applies  the  three-part  test,  it
focuses,  as  did  the  dissent  below,  see  415  F.  3d  50,  64 

—————— 

1 The Court seems to think we do not recognize that Tennessee Copper 
is a case about parens patriae standing, ante, at 17, n. 17, but we have 
no doubt about that.  The point is that nothing in our cases (or Hart &
Wechsler) suggests that the prudential requirements for parens patriae 
standing, see Republic of Venezuela v. Philip Morris Inc., 287 F. 3d 192, 
199, n. (CADC 2002) (observing that “parens patriae is merely a species 
of  prudential  standing”  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted)),  can
somehow substitute for, or alter the content of, the “irreducible consti-
tutional  minimum”  requirements  of  injury  in  fact,  causation,  and 
redressability  under  Article  III.    Lujan  v.  Defenders  of  Wildlife,  504 
U. S. 555, 560 (1992). 
  Georgia  v.  Pennsylvania  R.  Co.,  324  U. S.  439  (1945),  is  not  to  the 
contrary.  As the caption makes clear enough, the fact that a State may
assert rights under a federal statute as parens patriae in no way refutes
our clear ruling that “[a] State does not have standing as parens patriae 
to bring an action against the Federal Government.”  Alfred L. Snapp & 
Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez, 458 U. S. 592, 610, n. 16 (1982).