A little more on Massachusetts v. EPA: Standing and the public interest

JB

Current standing doctrines-- especially if construed narrowly in the way that many conservatives like-- make it far easier for businesses to have standing to challenge government regulations, because these regulations have predictable effects on their profits or their costs of doing business. But it's much harder for citizens, NGO's , environmental groups, or members of ideological organizations to get standing to challenge administrative agency decisions that affect a more generally diffuse public interest in good government policies, including, for example, a clean environment. As a result, courts must engage in elaborate legal strategies and devices to afford these groups standing. (The SCRAP case that Chief Justice Roberts invokes with disdain was such a case.).

The net effect of these doctrines is that businesses that want to relax or eliminate administrative enforcement of business regulations generally have a much easier time getting into court than NGO's or citizens' groups that want to ensure administrative enforcement of business regulations. Massachusetts v. EPA solves this problem by awarding standing to a state. Like some NGO's, state governments may sometimes promote a more generalized public interest in the environment.

Once again, how you feel about these effects of standing doctrine depends on whether you like standing rules that are more or less protective of business interests. Not surprisingly, conservative Republicans of Alito's and Roberts' stripe are more likely to be hostile to expansive standing rules. Maintaining a business friendly legal regime was another reason why George W. Bush appointed Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court, and it offers an additional explanation of their dissents in Massachusetts v. EPA.