Opinion ID: 186782
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Existence of a Regulatory Gap or Void.

Text: 37 As an alternate theory of standing, petitioners contend that the Department's Final Rule has left their members with a gap in safety regulation or void such that members of Petitioners that ship hazardous materials . . . cannot rely upon any meaningful federal or state regulations to protect either their products or the tank cars in which those products move. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 7, 9. In so arguing, petitioners bore the burdens of production and of proof: [they] `must support each element of [their] claim to standing by affidavit or other evidence' and their `burden of proof is to show a substantial probability,' GrassRoots Recycling Network, Inc. v. EPA, 429 F.3d 1109, 1112 (D.C.Cir.2005) (quoting Sierra Club, 292 F.3d at 899), that the Final Rule causes at least one of its members an injury that is `concrete and particularized' and `actual or imminent,' not `conjectural or hypothetical,' GrassRoots, 429 F.3d at 1112 (quoting Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130)). Where an organization alleges associational standing, it must show that at least one member . . . has standing to pursue [its] challenge, Am. Library Ass'n. v. FCC, 406 F.3d 689, 696 (D.C.Cir.2005). But petitioners have failed to meet this burden because they neither argued nor directed the Court to evidence that any of their specific members has suffered a concrete and particularized harm that is actual or imminent. 38 In Sierra Club v. EPA, 292 F.3d 895 (D.C.Cir.2002), this Court held that a petitioner whose standing is not self-evident [from the administrative record] should establish its standing by the submission of its arguments and any affidavits or other evidence[.] Id. at 900. In the opening round of briefs on appeal, petitioners only hinted at the possibility of associational standing by stating no more than that each association has numerous members that are subject to the rules at issue, and would have individual standing to file for review of the final rule. Petitioners' Br. at 2. Not finding standing self-evident, we granted leave to petitioners and respondent to submit supplemental briefs on the issue, which gave petitioners another opportunity to make their argument by directing us to portions of the record or by submitting affidavits or other evidence that show their standing. 39 In response, petitioners submitted no affidavits or other forms of evidence. Instead, they relied entirely upon citations to the record. Petitioners claimed only in a most general fashion that [t]he extensive administrative record in this case reflects that Petitioners' members operate facilities in most, if not every, state and in scores of local jurisdictions around the country. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 7. Petitioners then directed us to comments in the record submitted to the Department by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and suggest that they demonstrate that the Department improperly assume[d] that the states and localities have regulations in place that will provide the safety and security protections that petitioners seek. Id. But, not surprisingly since the NTSB's comments were not written for the purpose of demonstrating petitioners' standing, petitioners have not been able to show how those comments evidence that at least one of their members has suffered an actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical injury because of this alleged regulatory void. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (quotation marks omitted). 40 Petitioners also directed the Court to a brief comment made to the Department by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) expressing a  concern[] . . . [that] states and/or localities have not demonstrated an ability to regulate in these areas and [the Department] has not made an effort to address the safety consequences of its proposed actions. Joint Appendix (J.A.) at 319 (emphasis added). But petitioners have not explained how this comment shows an injury in fact suffered by a specific member. 41 While shedding some light on the general danger that may come from a regulatory void, the NTSB's comments and the ACC's comment, even when taken together, fall short of establishing certainly impending dangers for any particular member of the petitioners' associations. The comments do not indicate, for example, that any of petitioners' members have been or will be working in specific areas with safety concerns. It is not enough to allege that petitioners' associations comprise the majority of the workers who handle hazardous materials. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 7; J.A. at 113 and 120. Lacking any affidavits from petitioners' members alleging actual or imminent injury or other evidence to that effect, the Court can find the necessary harm only by assuming a link between the petitioners' comments in the administrative record and the proposition that at least one member of the association faces imminent dangers. We decline to assume missing links for reasons we gave in Sierra Club: 42 The facts upon which a petitioner relies for its standing to sue are necessarily peculiar to it and are ordinarily within its possession; indeed it is often the case . . . that some of the relevant facts are known only to the petitioner, to the exclusion of both the respondent and the court. Yet all too often the petitioner does not submit evidence of those facts with its opening brief and the respondent is therefore left to flail at the unknown in an attempt to prove the negative. 43 Id. at 901. If petitioners' claim to standing arises out of safety concerns for their members, they should easily have access to information concerning whether any one of their members has been harmed or faces a substantial probability of being harmed by lax state regulation. Petitioners had at least two opportunities to submit evidence to show standing for one of their members, and the Court is still left to wonder who, if anybody, has suffered an injury-in-fact. Since the NTSB's comments and ACC's comment do not meet the requirement that the evidence submitted, whether offered in the form of affidavits or other evidence, must sufficiently establish the imminent nature of the harm to one of petitioners' members, we hold that petitioners failed to supplement the record to the extent necessary to explain and substantiate its entitlement to judicial review. Sierra Club, 292 F.3d at 900. 44 Absent declarations or citations to the record from petitioners that establish a concrete harm to one of petitioners' members, the Court is left to wonder, for example, (1) whether petitioners suffer from a concrete, particularized, and imminent injury in fact; (2) why petitioners cannot protect their products or the tank cars in which those products move, Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 9, through voluntary self-regulation or private contracts; (3) whether any alleged injury is fairly traceable to the Department as opposed to petitioners themselves or state and local regulators; and (4) how setting aside the Department's Final Rule would likely remedy any alleged injury. Nonetheless, we do not suggest that petitioners could not possibly have demonstrated standing to challenge the Department's alleged failure to regulate. We need not, and do not, express any opinion on whether the manufacturers, shippers, and transporters in this case could have provided evidence of their standing to pursue the challenges they bring to the Department's Final Rule. It suffices to say that, when given an opportunity to do so, petitioners did not. 45 Contrary to the suggestion in the dissenting opinion, we are not requiring an actual past injury to petitioners to establish an injury-in-fact. We hold only that (i) the injury complained of be, if not actual, then at least imminent[.] Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 564 n. 2, 112 S.Ct. 2130, and just as importantly for these petitioners, (ii) that an organization bringing a claim based on associational standing must show that at least one specifically-identified member has suffered an injury-in-fact. It is not enough to show, as the dissent argues from its observation that petitioners are part of the industry being regulated by the Final Rule, that there is a substantial likelihood that at least one member may have suffered an injury-in-fact. Our standard has never been that it is likely that at least one member has standing. At the very least, the identity of the party suffering an injury in fact must be firmly established. The dissent cites persuasive authority to make a point that we do not contest: Article III does not require actual harm. We agree. Indeed, as Defenders of Wildlife makes clear, imminent harm will suffice. Id. But none of the cited cases diminish petitioner's burden to produce evidence of the imminent nature of a specific harm to a specific party when an actual harm is absent. That is where petitioners have failed. In fact, in each of the cases cited by the dissent either an actual harm (economic, aesthetic, or procedural) was present or the imminent nature of the harm to a specific entity or person was sufficiently established through affidavits or other evidence. See Ass'n of Data Processing Serv. Orgs. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970) (finding competitor standing for data processing companies since evidence of impending loss of two customers sufficiently established imminent economic harm); Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000) (holding that plaintiff's desire to canoe nearby a polluted wastewater discharge adequately documented injury in fact without showing any physical injury on the plaintiff's part since aesthetic and recreational values derived from the affected area were already lessened); Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 573 n. 7, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (noting that since procedural rights are special, a person who has been accorded a procedural right to protect his concrete interests can assert that right without meeting all the normal standards for redressability and immediacy); Hazardous Waste Treatment Council v. EPA, 861 F.2d 277 (D.C.Cir.1988) (finding associational standing since certain members of the organization submitted affidavits to establish past and future economic harm). 46 For the same reasons discussed above, intervenors, too, have failed to establish that at least one party has standing. Intervenors assert a basis for standing similar to petitioners' theory of a regulatory void, positing that 47 [the Department] improperly narrowed the scope of the regulated universe so that instead of facing uniform national regulatory standards as contemplated by the HMTA, intervenors face a hodge-podge of varying state and local requirements and standards that would be superseded by a properly issued federal regulation under the Act's preemption provision. 49 U.S.C. § 5125. 48 Intervenors' Br. at 6. Intervenors offer a string cite to the first page of various comments filed before the Department, but have not explained how any of their members suffers an injury-infact. Nor have intervenors introduced arguments and evidence attempting to substantiate their hodge-podge theory—that there are inconsistent state and local regulations, which a properly-issued Final Rule would have preempted, and that the failure to preempt these inconsistent regulations causes redressable injury in fact. Alternatively, intervenors assert in a sentence that they face increased liability risks associated with gaps in federal oversight over the safe and secure transportation of hazardous materials, Intervenors' Br. at 6-7, but again have introduced no evidence whatsoever to support such a claim. Thus, intervenors, too, have failed to meet their burden of establishing a substantial probability that the Final Rule causes at least one member an injury in fact. 5