Harry Blackmun

“ I find myself unable to agree with the plurality's analysis of redressability, based as it is on its invitation of executive lawlessness, ignorance of principles of collateral estoppel, unfounded assumptions about causation, and erroneous conclusions about what the record does not say. In my view, respondents have satisfactorily shown a genuine issue of fact as to whether their injury would likely be redressed by a decision in their favor.
II The Court concludes that any "procedural injury" suffered by respondents is insufficient to confer standing. ”

“ The Sri Lanka government lacks the necessary finances to undertake any long-term management programs to avoid the negative impacts to the wildlife. The donor nations and agencies that are financing the [Mahaweli project] will be the key as to how successfully the wildlife is preserved. If wildlife problems receive the same level of attention as the engineering project, then the negative impacts to the environment can be alleviated. This means that there has to be long-term funding in sufficient amounts to stem the negative impacts of this project. ”

“ Had the Solicitor General for example, taken a position during this appeal that the § 7 consultation requirement does in fact apply extraterritorially, the controversy would be moot, and this Court would be without jurisdiction.
In the plurality's view, federal subject matter jurisdiction appears to be a one-way street running the Executive Branch's way. When the Executive Branch wants to dispel jurisdiction over an action against an agency, it is free to raise at any point in the litigation that other nonparty agencies might not be bound by any determinations of the one agency defendant. ”

“ It is to be hoped that, over time, the Court will acknowledge that some classes of procedural duties are so enmeshed with the prevention of a substantive, concrete harm that an individual plaintiff may be able to demonstrate a sufficient likelihood of injury just through the breach of that procedural duty. ”

“ In National Wildlife Federation, the Court required specific geographical proximity because of the particular type of harm alleged in that case: harm to the plaintiff's visual enjoyment of nature from mining activities. Id., 497 U.S. at 888. One cannot suffer from the sight of a ruined landscape without being close enough to see the sites actually being mined. Many environmental injuries, however, cause harm distant from the area immediately affected by the challenged action. Environmental destruction may affect animals traveling over vast geographical ranges, see, e.g., Japan Whaling Assn. ”

“ More troubling still is the distance this one-way street carries the plurality from the underlying purpose of the standing doctrine. The purpose of the standing doctrine is to ensure that courts do not render advisory opinions rather than resolve genuine controversies between adverse parties. Under the plurality's analysis, the federal courts are to ignore their present ability to resolve a concrete controversy if, at some distant point in the past, it could be said that redress could not have been provided. The plurality perverts the standing inquiry. ”

“ The Court also rejects respondents' claim of vocational or professional injury. The Court says that it is "beyond all reason" that a zoo "keeper" of Asian elephants would have standing to contest his government's participation in the eradication of all the Asian elephants in another part of the world. Ante at 566. I am unable to see how the distant location of the destruction necessarily (for purposes of ruling [p595] at summary judgment) mitigates the harm to the elephant keeper. ”

“ Under [p597] principles of collateral estoppel, these agencies are precluded from subsequently relitigating the issues decided in this suit.
[O] ne who prosecutes or defends a suit in the name of another to establish and protect his own right, or who assists in the prosecution or defense of an action in aid of some interest of his own, and who does this openly to the knowledge of the opposing party, is as much bound by the judgment and as fully entitled to avail himself of it as an estoppel against an adverse party, as he would be if he had been a party to the record. ”

“ As a result, I believe respondents' injury would likely be redressed by a favorable decision. [p599]
The second redressability obstacle relied on by the plurality is that "the [action] agencies generally supply only a fraction of the funding for a foreign project." Ante at 571. What this Court might "generally" take to be true does not eliminate the existence of a genuine issue of fact to withstand summary judgment. ”