Antonin Scalia

“ It is clear that the person who observes or works with a particular animal threatened by a federal decision is facing perceptible harm, since the very subject of his interest will no longer exist. It is even plausible — though it goes to the outermost limit of plausibility — to think that a person who observes or works with animals of a particular species in the very area of the world where that species is threatened by a federal decision is facing such harm, since some animals that [p567] might have been the subject of his interest will no longer exist, see Japan Whaling Assn. ”

“ The first, inelegantly styled "ecosystem nexus," proposes that any person who uses any part of a "contiguous ecosystem" adversely affected by a funded activity has standing even if the activity is located a great distance away. This approach, as the Court of Appeals correctly observed, is inconsistent with our opinion in National Wildlife Federation, which held that a plaintiff claiming injury from environmental damage [p566] must use the area affected by the challenged activity, and not an area roughly "in the vicinity" of it. ”

“ To say that the Act protects ecosystems is not to say that the Act creates (if it were possible) rights of action in persons who have not been injured in fact, that is, persons who use portions of an ecosystem not perceptibly affected by the unlawful action in question.
Respondents' other theories are called, alas, the "animal nexus" approach, whereby anyone who has an interest in studying or seeing the endangered animals anywhere on the globe has standing ”

“ Article III. . . . Plaintiff has [asserted] only the right, possessed by every citizen, to require that the Government be administered according to law and that the public moneys be not wasted. Obviously this general right does not entitle a private citizen to institute in the federal courts a suit. . . . Ibid.
In Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923) , we dismissed for lack of Article III standing a taxpayer suit challenging the propriety of certain federal expenditures. ”

“ We have consistently held that a plaintiff raising only a generally available grievance about government — claiming only harm to his and every citizen's interest in proper application of the Constitution and laws, and seeking relief that [p574] no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large — does not state an Article III case or controversy. ”

“ A further impediment to redressability is the fact that the agencies generally supply only a fraction of the funding for a foreign project. AID, for example, has provided less than 10% of the funding for the Mahaweli Project. Respondents have produced nothing to indicate that the projects they have named will either be suspended, or do less harm to listed species, if that fraction is eliminated. As in Simon, 426 U.S. at 43-44, it is entirely conjectural whether the nonagency activity that affects respondents will be altered or affected by the agency activity they seek to achieve. ”

“ Thus, under our case law, one living adjacent to the site for proposed construction of a federally licensed dam has standing to challenge the licensing agency's failure to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, even though he cannot establish with any certainty that the Statement will cause the license to be withheld or altered, and even though the dam will not be completed for many years. ”

“ Under these theories, anyone who goes to see Asian elephants in the Bronx Zoo, and anyone who is a keeper of Asian elephants in the Bronx Zoo, has standing to sue because the Director of AID did not consult with the Secretary regarding the AID-funded project in Sri Lanka. This is beyond all reason. Standing is not "an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable," United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP) , 412 U.S. 669, 688 (1973) , but, as we have said, requires, at the summary judgment stage, a factual showing of perceptible harm. ”

“ Since the agencies funding the projects were not parties to the case, the District Court could accord relief only against the Secretary: he could be ordered to revise his regulation to require consultation for foreign projects. But this would not remedy respondents' alleged injury unless the funding agencies were bound by the Secretary's regulation, which is very much an open question. Whereas in other contexts the ESA is quite explicit as to the Secretary's controlling authority, see, e.g., 16 U.S.C. § 1533 (a) (1) ("The Secretary shall" promulgate regulations determining endangered species) ”

“ If the concrete injury requirement has the separation of powers significance we have always said, the answer must be obvious: to permit Congress to convert the undifferentiated public interest in executive officers' compliance with the law into an "individual right" vindicable in the courts is to permit Congress to transfer from the President to the courts the Chief Executive's most important constitutional duty, to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," Art. ”

“ The question presented here is whether the public interest in proper administration of the laws (specifically, in agencies' observance of a particular, statutorily prescribed procedure) can be converted into an individual right by a statute that denominates it as such, and [p577] that permits all citizens (or, for that matter, a subclass of citizens who suffer no distinctive concrete harm) to sue. ”

“ III A Respondents' claim to injury is that the lack of consultation with respect to certain funded activities abroad "increas [es] the rate of extinction of endangered and threatened species." Complaint ¶ 5, App. 13. Of course, the desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely aesthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest for purpose of [p563] standing. See, e.g., Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. at 734.
But the "injury in fact" test requires more than an injury to a cognizable interest. It requires that the party seeking review be himself among the injured. ”

“ In fact, the Sri Lanka memorandum suggests just the opposite: it states that AID's role will be to mitigate the "‘negative impacts to the wildlife,'" post at 600, which means that the termination of AID funding would exacerbate respondent's claimed injury.↑ . There is this much truth to the assertion that "procedural rights" are special: the 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. ”

“ There is no standing.
IV The Court of Appeals found that respondents had standing for an additional reason: because they had suffered a "procedural injury." The so-called "citizen suit" provision of the ESA provides, in pertinent part, that
any person may commence [p572] a civil suit on his own behalf (A) to enjoin any person, including the United States and any other governmental instrumentality or agency . ”

“ Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 (1990) — we are at a loss to see how, as a factual matter, the standard can be met by respondents' mere profession of an intent, some day, to return. But if, as we suspect, "soon" means nothing more than "in this lifetime," then the dissent has undertaken quite a departure from our precedents. Although "imminence" is concededly a somewhat elastic concept, it cannot be stretched beyond its purpose, which is to insure that the alleged injury is not too speculative for Article III purposes — that the injury is "certainly impending," id. ”

“ What respondents' "procedural rights" argument seeks, however, is quite different from this: standing for persons who have no concrete interests affected — persons who live (and propose to live) at the other end of the country from the dam.↑ . The dissent's discussion of this aspect of the case, post at 601-606, distorts our opinion. ”

“ We shall assume for the sake of argument that these affidavits contain facts showing that certain agency-funded projects threaten listed species — though that is questionable. They plainly contain no facts, however, showing how damage to the species will produce "imminent" injury to Mss. Kelly and Skilbred. That the women "had visited" the areas of the projects before the projects commenced proves nothing. As we have said in a related context,
" [p] ast exposure to illegal conduct does not, in itself, show a present case or controversy regarding injunctive relief . ”