Opinion ID: 547199
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Polities' Standing (MYs 87-88)

Text: 18 The polities' claim to standing rests upon an entirely different footing. They assert that the CAFE standard of 26.0 mpg for MYs 87-88 adversely affects air quality in their urban areas, making it more difficult for them to comply, as they must, with the air quality standards imposed upon them by the Clean Air Act: 19 Several states are considering or committed to more stringent VOC controls which are designed to achieve compliance in the near future. Such measures, such as controls on gasoline service stations, dry cleaners and even lawn mowers, are extremely costly and burdensome, and NHTSA's rule makes it more likely that these states will have to impose these and other additional control measures. Therefore, in a nonattainment area, in which the air quality is already worse than permitted, even the allegedly slight increase in air pollution caused by this rule will have a significant impact. 20 This is clearly a claim to suffer a constitutionally cognizable injury, namely, the increased risk that the agency might overlook these adverse consequences in reaching its decision without the benefit of an EIS. Unlike the environmental catastrophe projected by the NRDC, the injury asserted by the polities is fairly traceable to the challenged decision not to prepare an EIS; indeed, that decision is the exclusive cause of the harm they allege. The injury is also redressable, despite the passage of MYs 87 and 88 into history, because a manufacturer may carry forward to MYs 90 and 91 a deficit incurred in those earlier model years, and if left with a cumulative net deficit in MY 91, may carry back offsetting credits until MY 94. Therefore, if this court were to vacate the agency's decision for MYs 87-88 and to remand the matter for the NHTSA to prepare an EIS, the resulting agency decision could still affect manufacturers' incentives in marketing and designing their new cars. Finally, the environmental injury-in-fact of which the polities complain is clearly within the zone of interests that the Congress intended to regulate in enacting the NEPA. Committee for Auto Responsibility, 603 F.2d at 999. 21 Since we conclude that the polities have standing to challenge the NHTSA's decision not to prepare an EIS before issuing its final rule for MYs 87-88, it is not necessary to decide whether the Center for Auto Safety, Public Citizen, or the Union of Concerned Scientists, also have standing to challenge that decision. Their petitions for review were consolidated with those of the polities, and they joined with the polities in one brief. Therefore, nothing in our decision turns upon the question of their standing. See National Federation of Federal Employees v. United States, 905 F.2d 400, 403 & n. 4 (D.C.Cir.1990).