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Full-Text Articles in Law
God, Gaia, The Taxpayer And The Lorax: Standing, Justiciability, And Separation Of Powers After Massachusetts And Hein, Jonathan H. Adler
God, Gaia, The Taxpayer And The Lorax: Standing, Justiciability, And Separation Of Powers After Massachusetts And Hein, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court decided two important standing cases during the October 2006 term: Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation and Massachusetts v. EPA. The latter is important for what it did, the former for what it did not do. Whereas Hein hewed closely - perhaps too closely - to prior standing precendents, the Massachusetts decision substantially departed from existing precedent and established a new doctrine of special solicitude to state standing. Both decisions involved generalized grievances about federal government policies that affect citizens as a whole, but point in opposite directions. In many respects the opinions are in significant tension …
Warming Up To Climate Change Litigation, Jonathan H. Adler
Warming Up To Climate Change Litigation, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
The surprise in Massachusetts v. EPA was not that it was a close, hotly contested case. Rather, the surprise was the facility and ease with which the Court majority dispatched opposing arguments and redefined prior precedents. Not content to widen doctrines on the margins, Justice Stevens' majority opinion blazed a new path through the law of standing and unearthed newfound regulatory authority for the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Under the Court's new interpretation, the Clean Air Act ("CAA" or "the Act") provides EPA with roving authority, if not responsibility, to regulate any substance capable of causing or contributing to …