Court Opinion

ID: 9430186
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:08.955931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:23.540185
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
concurring in the judgment.
This appeal presents a question under Article III, but one which differs from that addressed by the Court and whose answer prevents me from reaching the merits of appellees’ claims.
Appellees, plaintiffs in the District Court, challenge the constitutionality of an “arbitration procedure that [allegedly] violates their right to an adjudication that complies with” Article III insofar as it empowers civilian arbitrators to determine the amount of compensation they are entitled to receive for use of their research data. Amended Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunction ¶¶ 20-21, App. 23-24. The relief they claim against the Environmental Protection Agency and its Administrator (collectively referred to as the agency, EPA, or the Administrator) is a declaration of unconstitutionality and an injunction against use of their data in the agency’s processing of applications filed by third parties. See id., at 24.
*603In § 3(c)(l)(D)(ii) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act,1 Congress provided appellees with a contingent form of protection against the EPA’s use of certain of their research data: “[T]he Administrator may, without the permission of the original data submitter, consider any such item of data in support of an application by any other person (hereinafter in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘applicant’) . . . only if the applicant has made an offer to compensate the original data submitter . . . 92 Stat. 821, 7 U. S. C. § 136a(c)(l)(D)(ii) (emphasis added). Appellees’ research data may not be used to process a third party’s application unless that party offers to compensate appellees in an amount that is “fixed by agreement between the original data submitter and the applicant, or, failing such agreement, binding arbitration.” Ibid. But if the third party consents to this procedure for determining the appropriate compensation, there is no statutory restraint on EPA’s use of the data.2
*604Appellees make no claim that the Administrator has used any of their data without obtaining the consent required by the statute. Thus, the statute provides no basis for any relief against EPA. And if we should declare § 3(c)(l)(D)(ii) unconstitutional, there is no other basis of which I am aware *605for interfering with the agency’s use of appellees’ data. See ante, at 584-585; Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co., 467 U. S. 986, 1016-1019 (1984). Therefore, whether or not the arbitration provision is constitutional, there is no basis for enjoining EPA’s use of appellees’ research data.
For a party to have standing to invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court “relief from the injury must be ‘likely’ to follow from a favorable decision.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 751 (1984); accord, Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982); Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 38, 43-46 (1976); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 507 (1975); Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 618-619 (1973). Because § 3(c)(l)(D)(ii) does not give appellees any legal basis for claiming that they have been harmed by anything EPA did or threatened to do, a decision that FIFRA’s arbitration provisions violate Article III could not support an injunction against the Administrator’s use of appellees’ data. Accordingly, appellees do not have standing to challenge the constitutionality of § 3(c)(l)(D)(ii) in this action.3 For this reason, I agree that the judgment of the District Court must be reversed.

 The text of § 3(e)(l)(D)(ii) is quoted in full ante, at 574-575, n. 1.

 Under appellees’ reading of § 3(c)(l)(D)(ii), compensation is a condition precedent to EPA’s use of their research data to evaluate applications by third parties. See Amended Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunction ¶ 20, App. 23. Because the statutorily required arbitration procedure violates Article III, they reason, compensation cannot be awarded and the condition precedent to EPA’s use of data cannot be fulfilled. Ergo, an injunction must issue against the agency.
Appellees, however, misread the statute. Section 3(c)(l)(D)(ii) conditions the Administrator’s use of their data on a third party’s “offer to compensate,” not upon actual compensation. 92 Stat. 821, 7 U. S. C. § 136a(c)(l)(D)(ii) (emphasis added); accord, § 3(c)(1)(D)(iii), 92 Stat. 822, 7 U. S. C. § 136a(e)(l)(D)(iii). Indeed, the same section later provides that “[r]egistration action by the Administrator shall not be delayed pending the fixing of compensation.” 92 Stat. 822, 7 U. S. C. § 136a(c)(l)(D)(ii). A straightforward reading of this section demonstrates that EPA is not disabled from using research data to process “follow-on” registrations pending compensation of appellees. I find nothing in the legislative history that contradicts this interpretation, and it is consistent with Congress’ “vie[w] [of] data-sharing as essential to the registration scheme,” ante, at *604573, and with the Legislature’s consequent desire to break “the ‘logjam of litigation that resulted from controversies over data compensation and trade secret protection,”’ ibid, (quoting S. Rep. No. 95-334, p. 3 (1977)). See id,., at 3 (“The single largest problem is the fact that the registration and reregistration process has ground to a virtual halt. . . . Since registration is critical, this program must be made to work”). Congress surely-desired both that EPA have use of appellees’ data and that appellees be compensated for such use. But there is no evidence to indicate that Congress intended these complementary provisions to be mutually dependent. See § 30, 92 Stat. 836, 7 U. S. C. § 136x (“If any provision of this [Act]. . . is held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect other provisions. . . which can be given effect without regard to the invalid provision . . . and to this end the provisions of this [Act] are severable”); cf. INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 931-935 (1983).
The sentence the Court believes “ties the follow-on registration to the arbitration,” ante, at 582, is beside the point. Section 3(c)(l)(D)(ii) requires the Administrator to “deny the application or cancel the registration of the pesticide” if the third-party “follow-on” applicant “has failed to participate in a procedure for reaching an agreement or in an arbitration proceeding as required by this subparagraph, or failed to comply with the terms of an agreement or arbitration decision concerning compensation.” 92 Stat. 821, 7 U. S. C. § 136a(c)(l)(D)(ii). This sentence is obviously addressed to defaults by third-party “follow-on” applicants in the registration process and hardly suggests that Congress would have scrapped the entire data-use provision if the compensation component was found unconstitutional. To restate the obvious, Congress undoubtedly intended that EPA have use of original applicants’ research data and that such use be recompensed — the statute, after all, provides for both. But the Legislature’s unequivocal intention to facilitate pesticide registrations and the presence of an express severability provision (accompanied by the traditional duty “to save and not to destroy,” Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672, 684 (1971)), makes it rather unlikely that Congress gambled the entire pesticide registration process on the constitutionality of a provision for arbi-trable compensation. I therefore conclude that even if we invalidated the compensation clauses appellees would have no right to an injunction against EPA’s use of appellees’ research data.

 The District Court held that appellees had standing to challenge FIFRA’s arbitration provisions because “plaintiffs’ injuries here would be the direct product of the statutory plan.” Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co. v. Ruckelshaus, 571 F. Supp. 117, 123, n. 2 (SDNY 1983). This analysis is incomplete: “The injury must be ‘fairly’ traceable to the challenged action, and relief from the injury must be ‘likely’ to follow from a favorable decision.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S., at 751 (emphasis added); accord, Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S., at 472. These two components of the Article III causation requirement are distinct: The “fairly traceable” component “examines the causal connection between the assertedly unlawful conduct and the alleged injury”; the “redressability” component “examines the causal connection between the alleged injury and the judicial relief requested.” Allen v. Wright, supra, at 753, n. 19. “[I]t is important to keep the inquiries separate.” Ibid.