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XI. Standing
A. Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U.S. 871, 110 S. Ct. 3177 (1990).
FACTS: The United States Supreme Court was asked to confer standing on plaintiffs
who had alleged in affidavits the use of public lands "in the vicinity" of land that was the
subject of 2 out of 1,250 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) orders. These orders,
plaintiffs claimed, would open public lands up to mining activities, thereby destroying
their natural beauty. Plaintiffs challenged all of the 1,250 BLM orders, claiming
violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Federal Land Policy
and Management Act (FLPMA).
The district court, ruling on defendants' motion for summary judgment, found that
plaintiffs had no standing to seek judicial review. Specifically the court held that even if
the affidavits claiming use of lands "in the vicinity" of lands that were the subject of two
BLM orders were sufficient to challenge those two particular orders, they were not
sufficient to allow a challenge to each of the 1,250 individual orders. The Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, finding the affidavits sufficient to
confer standing to challenge the two individual orders and that standing to challenge
those orders conferred standing to challenge all 1,250 orders.
FINDINGS: Reversing the Court of Appeals in a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Scalia,
the Supreme Court acknowledged that neither NEPA nor FLPMA provides a private right
of action for violations of its provisions. Rather an injured party must seek relief under
the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). To demonstrate standing under APA, a
plaintiff must identify some final agency action that affects him or her
and must show he
or she has suffered a legal wrong because of the agency action or is adversely affected by
that action within the meaning of a relevant statute. To be "adversely affected within the
meaning of a statute," a plaintiff must be within the "zone of interests" sought to be
protected by the statutory provision that forms the basis of the complaint.
Using this test of standing, the Court found that plaintiffs' interest in recreational use and
aesthetic enjoyment of the federal lands were within the "zone of interests" protected by
NEPA and FLPMA. However the Court concluded that plaintiffs, by simply claiming
use "in the vicinity" of immense tracts of land managed by BLM, had not shown they
would be "adversely affected" by the BLM actions. Moreover the Court found that
plaintiffs were attempting to challenge BLM operation of its land management program
generally, not a final agency action in particular. Given these findings, the Court ruled
that plaintiffs had not set forth "specific facts" in their affidavits sufficient to survive
defendants' motion for summary judgment.
A dissent authored by Justice Blackmun noted that the showing required to overcome a
motion for summary judgment is more extensive than that required for a motion to
dismiss, but concluded that the allegations in the affidavits were adequate to defeat a