SUMMERS ET AL. v. EARTH ISLAND INSTITUTE
Decided March 3, 2009
[The Court, by a 5 to 4 vote, found plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge a Forest Service rule exempting small timber sales from the agency's usual notice and comment procedural rules.  After a California district court entered a preliminary injunction in a suit challenging the exemption as it applied to the Burnt Ridge timber sale, the parties settled the Burnt Ridge dispute.  The Court, however, decided the merits of the case and found that the exemption from notice and comment provisions violated the law.  The government argued on appeal that Earth Island lacked standing to sue once the Burnt Ridge dispute had been settled.]

Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
     .....Affidavits submitted to the District Court alleged that organization member Ara Marderosian had repeatedly visited the Burnt Ridge site, that he had imminent plans to do so again, and that his interests in viewing the floraand fauna of the area would be harmed if the Burnt Ridge Project went forward without incorporation of the ideas he would have suggested if the Forest Service had provided him an opportunity to comment. The Government concedes this was sufficient to establish Article III standing with respect to Burnt Ridge. Marderosian’s threatened injury with regard to that project was originally one of the bases for the present suit. After the District Court had issued a preliminary injunction, however, the parties settled their differences on that score. Marderosian’s injury in fact with regard to that project has been remedied, and it is, as the District Court pronounced, “not at issue in this case.”
     We know of no precedent for the proposition that when a plaintiff has sued to challenge the lawfulness of certain action or threatened action but has settled that suit, he retains standing to challenge the basis for that action (here, the regulation in the abstract), apart from any concrete application that threatens imminent harm to his interests. Such a holding would fly in the face of Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement.
     Respondents have identified no other application of the invalidated regulations that threatens imminent and concrete harm to the interests of their members. The only other affidavit relied on was that of Jim Bensman. He asserted, first, that he had suffered injury in the past from development on Forest Service land. That does not suffice for several reasons: because it was not tied to application of the challenged regulations, because it does not identify any particular site, and because it relates to past injury rather than imminent future injury that is sought to beenjoined.
     Bensman’s affidavit further asserts that he has visited many National Forests and plans to visit several unnamed National Forests in the future. Respondents describe this as a mere failure to “provide the name of each timber sale that affected [Bensman’s] interests.” It is much more (or much less) than that. It is a failure to allege that any particular timber sale or other project claimed to be unlawfully subject to the regulations will impede a specific and concrete plan of Bensman’s to enjoy the National Forests. The National Forests occupy more than 190 million acres, an area larger than Texas. There may be a chance, but is hardly a likelihood, that Bensman’s wanderings will bring him to a parcel about to be affected by a project unlawfully subject to the regulations. Indeed, without further specification it is impossible to tell which projects are (in respondents’ view) unlawfully subject to the regulations. The allegations here present a weaker likelihood of concrete harm than that which we found insufficient in Lyons, where a plaintiff who alleged that he had been injured by an improper police chokehold sought injunctive relief barring use of the hold in the future....
Exploring Constitutional Law