Opinion ID: 187344
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Petitioners' Substantive Theory of Standing

Text: Under their substantive theory of standing, Petitioners argue that Interior's approval of the Program brings about climate change, which in turn adversely affects the species and ecosystems of those OCS areas, thereby threatening Petitioners' enjoyment of the OCS areas and their inhabitants. In other words, Petitioners contend that, absent Interior's approval of the Program, the OCS areas at issue would not be subject to environmental impacts allegedly brought about by climate change associated with the burning of fossil fuels produced under the Program. To begin with, the Supreme Court's recent decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 127 S.Ct. 1438, 167 L.Ed.2d 248 (2007), does not govern this issue. Its holding turned on the unique circumstances of that case, which are not present here. In Massachusetts, a group of private organizations petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin regulating emissions of four greenhouse gases, arguing that a rise in global temperatures and climatological changes resulted from an increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. After the EPA denied the petition, the petitioners joined by the Commonwealth of Massachusettssought this Court's review of the EPA's denial of their petition. The EPA maintained that the petitioners lacked standing to bring such a petition because the harm that they allegedthe effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global warmingwas widespread, and did not individually affect any of the petitioners. Accordingly, the EPA contended, petitioners failed to demonstrate a concrete and particularized injury required to show standing under Article III. After we upheld the EPA's denial of the petition without reaching a consensus on the standing issue, the Supreme Court decided on review that the petitioners had standing to bring their petition. In its opinion, however, the Supreme Court made an effort to note that its finding was based on the uniqueness of the case before it. As the Court explained, it was of considerable relevance that the party seeking review ... is a sovereign State and not, as it was in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992), a private individual. Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 518, 127 S.Ct. 1438. The Court noted further that it was critical that Massachusetts sought to assert its own rights as a state under the Clean Air Act, and was not seeking to protect the rights of its citizens under the Clean Air Act. Id. at 520 n. 17, 127 S.Ct. 1438. In light of these unique circumstances, the Court afforded Massachusetts special solicitude in the Court's standing analysis due to Massachusetts's interests in ensuring the protection of the land and air within its domain, and its well-founded desire to preserve its sovereign territory. Id. at 519, 520, 127 S.Ct. 1438. With respect to Massachusetts's injury, the Court found that Massachusetts owns a substantial portion of the state's coastal property that had already been harmed by the EPA's inaction, and that the EPA's failure to regulate these gases would cause additional harm to its shoreline. Id. at 523, 127 S.Ct. 1438. Though the Court found that the risks of climate change were widely shared because global sea levels had already begun to rise, it nevertheless concluded that Massachusetts had shown a sufficiently particularized injury because Massachusetts had alleged that its particular shoreline had actually been diminished by the effects of climate change. Id. In other words, by showing that climate change had diminished part of its own shoreline, Massachusetts itself had shown that it had been affected in a personal and individual way by the EPA's failure to regulate greenhouse gases. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560 n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 2130. Thus, Massachusetts stands only for the limited proposition that, where a harm is widely shared, a sovereign, suing in its individual interest, has standing to sue where that sovereign's individual interests are harmed, wholly apart from the alleged general harm. Assuming arguendo that Point Hope is a sovereign that might be entitled to special solicitude under Massachusetts, it is clear that Massachusetts does not govern this case. Point Hope does not allege anywhere that it has suffered its own individual harm apart from the general harm caused by climate change, and its derivative effects on Point Hope's members. Point Hope does not allege that Interior's acts will cause damage to, or otherwise adversely affect, any of its own territory. To the contrary, each of Petitioners' climate change claims are founded on Interior's Leasing Program actions and the effects of those actions on the climate in general. Moreover, to the extent that Petitioners allege that the Leasing Program caused any actual harm to any territory, this harm is limited to areas of the OCS areas that are owned by the federal government, not by a state or Native American tribe. Aside from these allegations of generalized harm brought about by climate change, Petitioners have not demonstrated that climate change would directly cause any diminution of Point Hope's territory any more than anywhere else. Accordingly, without this necessary element being present, we find that Massachusetts 's limited holding does not extend to the standing analysis in this case. Moreover, it is doubtful that Point Hope would be able to assert a quasi-sovereign claim on behalf of its members against the federal government, as Massachusetts had against the EPA. Both the majority and dissenting opinions in Massachusetts recognized the general rule that a sovereign is prohibited from bringing an action to protect its citizens from the operation of federal statutes. See Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 520 n. 17, 127 S.Ct. 1438 (majority opinion); id. at 539, 127 S.Ct. 1438 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting); see also Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 484-86, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923). Here, Point Hope does not allege any specific harm that it has suffered individually as a result of Interior's actions in approving the Leasing Program. Instead, Point Hope is suing on behalf of its members and their individual interests. As the Court has long recognized, only the United States, and not the states, may represent its citizens and ensure their protection under federal law in federal matters. See Mellon, 262 U.S. at 485-86, 43 S.Ct. 597. Outside of the very limited factual setting of Massachusetts, the Supreme Court's decision in Defenders of Wildlife sets forth the test for standing. See Fla. Audubon Soc'y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658 (D.C.Cir.1996). In order for a petitioner to establish standing, a petitioner must demonstrate that it has suffered a concrete and particularized injury that is caused by, or fairly traceable to, the act challenged in the litigation and redressable by the court. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130; Fla. Audubon Soc'y, 94 F.3d at 663. In cases such as this, where the petitioner is not the object of an alleged government action or inaction, standing is not precluded, but it is ordinarily `substantially more difficult' to establish. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (quoting Allen, 468 U.S. at 758, 104 S.Ct. 3315). In cases such as this, causation and redressability ordinarily hinge on the actions of independent actors not before the courts and whose exercise of broad and legitimate discretion the courts cannot presume either to control or to predict. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (quoting ASARCO, Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 615, 109 S.Ct. 2037, 104 L.Ed.2d 696 (1989) (opinion of Kennedy, J.)). Accordingly, the petitioner bears the burden of adduc[ing] facts showing that those [third-party] choices have been or will be made in such manner as to produce causation and permit redressability of injury. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (citing Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 505, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975)). Petitioners' substantive theory of standing fails because Petitioners have not established either the injury or causation element of standing. First, it is well-established that a party must demonstrate that it has suffered an injury that affects it in a personal and individual way. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560 n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 2130. Standing analysis does not examine whether the environment in general has suffered an injury. See Fla. Audubon Soc'y, 94 F.3d at 665. And yet Petitioners' substantive argument focuses on just this type of injury: that climate change might occur in the Arctic environment if the Leasing Program is allowed to proceed. This type of injury is insufficient to establish standing for two reasons. First, Petitioners' alleged injury runs afoul of the requirement that a justiciable injury must be actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (internal quotation marks omitted). A threatened injury must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact. Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 158, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). Petitioners can only aver that any significant adverse effects of climate change may occur at some point in the future. This does not amount to the actual, imminent, or certainly impending injury required to establish standing. Second, climate change is a harm that is shared by humanity at large, and the redress that Petitioners seekto prevent an increase in global temperatureis not focused any more on these petitioners than it is on the remainder of the world's population. Therefore Petitioners' alleged injury is too generalized to establish standing. Even if Petitioners were able to demonstrate an injury sufficient for standing, their substantive theory would still fail because Petitioners have failed to demonstrate a causal link between the government action by Interior and Petitioners' particularized injury. To properly establish causation, the injury must be `fairly' traceable to the challenged action. Allen, 468 U.S. at 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315. That is, the plaintiff must show that it is substantially probable ... that the challenged acts of the defendant, not of some absent third party, will cause the particularized injury of the plaintiff. Fla. Audubon Soc'y, 94 F.3d at 663 (citing Allen, 468 U.S. at 753 n. 19, 104 S.Ct. 3315). The more attenuated or indirect the chain of causation between the government's conduct and the plaintiff's injury, the less likely the plaintiff will be able to establish a causal link sufficient for standing. See Allen, 468 U.S. at 757-58, 104 S.Ct. 3315. In this case, Petitioners rely on too tenuous a causal link between their allegations of climate change and Interior's action in the first stage of this Leasing Program. In order to reach the conclusion that Petitioners are injured because of Interior's alleged failure to consider the effects of climate change with respect to the Leasing Program, Petitioners must argue that: adoption of the Leasing Program will bring about drilling; drilling, in turn, will bring about more oil; this oil will be consumed; the consumption of this oil will result in additional carbon dioxide being dispersed into the air; this carbon dioxide will consequently cause climate change; this climate change will adversely affect the animals and their habitat; therefore Petitioners are injured by the adverse effects on the animals they enjoy. Such a causal chain cannot adequately establish causation because Petitioners rely on the speculation that various different groups of actors not present in this casenamely, oil companies, individuals using oil in their cars, cars actually dispersing carbon dioxidemight act in a certain way in the future. Moreover, Petitioners' causal chain fails to take into account that, at each successive stage of the Leasing Program, the law requires that Interior conduct additional and more detailed assessments of the Program's potential effect on the proposed leasing areas. See 43 U.S.C. §§ 1340(g)(3), 1351(h)(1)(D)(i). As mentioned previously, these additional analyses could scuttle a leasing program if the environmental effects of that program are found to be excessive. See supra Section I.B. Petitioners therefore also do not have standing because they cannot adequately establish causation. Accordingly, Petitioners' substantive theory of standing fails.