Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 606 U. S. Part 1
Pages 100–145
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
June 20, 2025
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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N O T I C E : This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

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100 OCTOBER
TERM, 2024
Syllabus
DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, LLC, et al. v.
ENVIRONMENT
AL PROTECTION AGENCY et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the district of columbia circuit
No. 24–7. Argued April 23, 2025—Decided June 20, 2025
Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
approved California regulations that require automakers to manufac-
ture more electric vehicles and fewer gasoline-powered vehicles with a
goal of decreasing emissions from liquid fuels. The regulations require
automakers to limit average greenhouse-gas emissions across their vehi-
cle feets and manufacture a certain percentage of electric vehicles.
Several producers of fuels such as gasoline and ethanol sued EPA in the
D. C. Circuit, arguing that EPA lacked authority to approve the Califor-
nia regulations because they target global climate change rather than
local California air quality problems as required by the Clean Air Act.
They submitted standing declarations explaining that California's regu-
lations depress demand for liquid fuel by requiring vehicles that use less
or no liquid fuel, causing the fuel producers monetary injury. Califor-
nia's own estimates indicated the regulations would cause substantial
reductions in demand for gasoline exceeding $1 billion beginning in 2020
and increasing to over $10 billion in 2030.
EPA did not challenge the fuel producers' standing in the D. C. Cir-
cuit. California, as well as other States adopting California's regula-
tions, intervened to defend EPA's approval. California argued that the
fuel producers lacked standing because automobile manufacturers would
not change course if EPA's decision were vacated given the “surging
consumer demand” for electric vehicles. The D. C. Circuit held that the
fuel producers lacked Article III standing, fnding they failed to estab-
lish that automakers would likely respond to invalidation of the regula-
tions by producing fewer electric vehicles and more gasoline-powered
vehicles.
Held: The fuel producers have Article III standing to challenge EPA's
approval of the California regulations. Pp. 110–126.
(a) Article III limits federal court jurisdiction to “Cases” and “Con-
troversies,” requiring plaintiffs to demonstrate standing by showing
three elements: injury in fact, causation, and redressability. Injury in
fact requires a “ `concrete,' ” “particularized” injury that is “actual or
imminent.” FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 367,
381. Causation requires showing “the injury was likely caused by the

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as: 606 U. S. 100 (2025)
101
Syllabus
defendant.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. 413, 423. Re-
dressabi
lity requires demonstrating that judicial relief would likely re-
dress the injury. Ibid. When a plaintiff is not the direct object of
government regulation, causation and redressability often depend on
how third parties not before the court will predictably respond to the
regulation or judicial relief. Pp. 110–113.
(b) The fuel producers' injury in fact and causation are straightfor-
ward and undisputed. The fuel producers make money by selling fuel,
so decreased purchases of gasoline and other liquid fuels resulting from
California's regulations constitute monetary injury. EPA's approval au-
thorized California and 17 other States to enforce regulations requiring
lower emissions and vehicle electrifcation, thereby reducing liquid fuel
purchases. The regulations likely cause the fuel producers' monetary
injuries because reducing gasoline and diesel fuel consumption is the
whole point of the regulations.
The fuel producers also satisfy redressability. Even minimal addi-
tional revenue would satisfy this requirement, and invalidating the
regulations would likely result in more revenue from additional fuel
sales based on commonsense economic principles and record evidence.
Pp. 113–124.
(1) The fuel producers might be considered direct objects of the
California regulations because the regulations explicitly seek to restrict
gasoline and other liquid fuel use in automobiles. When the govern-
ment prohibits or impedes one company from using another company's
product or service, both companies might be deemed objects of the regu-
lation. See, e. g., Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535–536;
Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. United States, 316 U. S. 407,
422. The Court need not resolve this question because the record evi-
dence in this case establishes the fuel producers' standing in any event.
Pp. 114–116.
(2) This case presents the “familiar” circumstance where govern-
ment regulation of one business “may be likely” to cause injuries to
other linked businesses. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S.,
at 384. California's regulations force automakers to manufacture more
electric vehicles and fewer gasoline-powered vehicles, likely causing
downstream economic injuries to fuel producers. Invalidating these
regulations would likely mean more gasoline-powered automobiles and
more fuel sales.
EPA and California argue this case is unusual because the vehicle
market has developed such that automakers would not manufacture
more gasoline-powered cars even if regulations were invalidated. This
argument is undermined by their own actions—if invalidating the regu-
lations would change nothing, why are they enforcing and defending

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Syllabus
them? The whole point of the regulations is to increase electric vehi-
cles
beyond what consumers would otherwise demand and manufactur-
ers would otherwise produce.
Record evidence confrms that invalidating the regulations would
likely redress the fuel producers' monetary injury. First, the fuel pro-
ducers' declarations quote California's own estimates of substantial re-
ductions in gasoline demand and note California's recognition that fuel
providers would be “most adversely affected.” App. 137. Second, Cal-
ifornia stated in 2021 that the regulations are “critical” for future emis-
sions reductions and submitted expert declarations in 2022 stating that
without the regulations, fewer electric vehicles would be sold and more
gasoline-fueled vehicles would be sold. Id., at 66, 115. Third, EPA
affrmed that California “needs” its standards and credited California's
estimates that the regulations would continue reducing emissions
through at least 2037. 87 Fed. Reg. 14334; 89 Fed. Reg. 82558. Fourth,
fve automakers who invested heavily in electric vehicles intervened
to defend the regulations and predicted that without California's reg-
ulations, other automakers would seek a competitive advantage by sell-
i ng fewer elec tr ic veh icles and more gasoli ne-powered veh icles.
Pp. 116–120.
(3) EPA and California argue the fuel producers needed more evi-
dence, such as affdavits from expert economists or directly regulated
automakers. This Court has not demanded such evidence to show how
third parties would likely respond to government regulations. Plain-
tiffs must simply “show a predictable chain of events” that would likely
result from judicial relief. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602
U. S., at 385. Requiring affdavits from regulated third parties would
make standing dependent on whether the plaintiff and third parties
share litigation interests and whether third parties are willing to pub-
licly oppose the government regulator. Such a heightened requirement
would close the courthouse doors to many traditional challenges to
agency action. Pp. 120–121.
(4) This case does not involve the rare instance where a market has
likely permanently changed such that invalidating a challenged regula-
tion would have no effect on that market. Such instances are rare for
two reasons. First, governments do not usually continue enforcing and
defending regulations that have no continuing effect. Second, the ef-
fect of regulations like these depend on interrelated economic forces
that change over time, so courts should be wary of claims that invalidat-
ing important regulations would have zero impact on dynamic, heavily
regulated markets. The evidence that some automakers are in compli-
ance with California's mandates suggests regulatory effect, not absence

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as: 606 U. S. 100 (2025)
103
Syllabus
of effect, and does not demonstrate how all automakers would respond
to
invalidation. Pp. 121–124.
98 F. 4th 288, reversed and remanded.
Kavanaugh, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts,
C. J., and Thomas, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Barrett, JJ., joined.
Sotomayor, J., post, p. 126, and Jackson, J., post, p. 128, fled dissenting
opinions.
Jeffrey B. Wall argued the cause for petitioners. With
him on the briefs were Morgan L. Ratner, Leslie B. Arffa,
Brittany M. Pemberton, Eric D. McArthur, Carter G. Phil-
lips, Matthew W. Morrison, Shelby L. Dyl, Michael Busch-
bacher, Jared M. Kelson, and Richard S. Moskowitz.
Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for
federal respondents. On the brief were Acting Solicitor
General Harris, Acting Assistant Attorney General Gustaf-
son, Deputy Solicitor General Stewart, Matthew Guarnieri,
and James Payne.
Joshua A. Klein, Deputy Solicitor General of California,
argued the cause for state respondents. With him on the
brief were Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Michael J. Mon-
gan, Solicitor General, Tracy Winsor, Senior Assistant At-
torney General, Teresa A. Reed Dippo, Deputy Solicitor
General, Theodore McCombs, Caitlan McLoon, Elaine
Meckenstock, and Jonathan Wiener, Deputy Attorneys Gen-
eral, and Haley L. Amster, Associate Deputy Solicitor Gen-
eral, and by the Attorneys General for their respective juris-
dictions as follows: Philip J. Weiser of Colorado, William
Tong of Connecticut, Kathleen Jennings of Delaware, Brian
L. Schwalb of the District of Columbia, Anne E. Lopez of
Hawaii, Kwame Raoul of Illinois, Aaron M. Frey of Maine,
Anthony G. Brown of Maryland, Andrea Joy Campbell of
Massachusetts, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Aaron D. Ford
of Nevada, Matthew J. Platkin of New Jersey, Raúl Torrez
of New Mexico, Letitia James of New York, Jeff Jackson of
North Carolina, Dan Rayfeld of Oregon, Peter F. Neronha
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104 DIAMOND
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Opinion of the Court
of Rhode Island, Charity R. Clark of Vermont, and Nicholas
W
. Brown of Washington.*
Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court.
Pursuant to the Clean Air Act, the U. S. Environmental
Protection Agency approved California regulations requir-
ing automakers to alter their feets of new vehicles. Under
those California regulations, automakers must manufacture
more electric vehicles and fewer gasoline-powered vehicles.
The goal is to decrease emissions from the use of gasoline
and other liquid fuels. Producers of gasoline and other liq-
uid fuels sued EPA, arguing that EPA's approval of the Cali-
fornia regulations violated the Clean Air Act.
The sole issue before this Court is whether the fuel pro-
ducers have standing to maintain their suit.
The fuel producers assert that the California regulations
reduce the manufacture and sale of cars powered by gasoline
and other liquid fuels, thereby causing a decrease in sales
of those fuels by the fuel producers. So fuel producers take
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the American
Petroleum Institute by Paul D. Clement and C. Harker Rhodes IV; for the
Cato Institute by Thomas A. Berry and Brent Skorup; for the Chamber
of Commerce of the United States of America et al. by Jaime A. Santos,
William M. Jay, Benjamin Hayes, Jennifer B. Dickey, and Andrew R.
Varcoe; for the Foothill Church et al. by Rory T. Gray and John J. Bursch;
for the Sulphur Institute by Patrick F. Philbin and Chase Harrington;
for the Texas Oil & Gas Association et al. by James K. Vines and Samuel
P. Funk; for the Texas Royalty Council et al. by Ivan L. London; for The
Two Hundred for Homeownership by Rafe Petersen; and for the Western
States Petroleum Association et al. by Katherine C. Yarger.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the International
Council on Clean Transportation et al. by Matthew D. Zinn; and for F.
Andrew Hessick, pro se, and Richard A. Simpson.
Briefs of amici curiae were fled for Advancing American Freedom
et al. by J. Marc Wheat; for ConservAmerica Inc. by John A. Sheehan; for
Our Children's Trust et al. by Julia A. Olson, Andrea K. Rodgers, Philip
L. Gregory, and Lucia Goin; and for Heather Elliott et al. by Benjamin
W. Berkowitz and Andrew F. Dawson.
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Opinion of the Court
in less revenue than they would in a free market. Invali-
dati
ng the regulations, they say, would remove a regulatory
impediment to their ability to fully compete in the market.
And without California's regulations in effect, manufacturers
would likely make more cars powered by gasoline and other
liquid fuels, thereby increasing purchases of those fuels and
redressing the fuel producers' injury.
EPA and California dispute redressability. They suggest
that, even if the regulations are invalidated, car manufactur-
ers nonetheless wou ld not manufacture more gasol ine-
powered cars. They posit that the California regulations no
longer have any impact because, in a free market, consumer
demand for and manufacturers' supply of electric vehicles
would still supposedly exceed what the California regula-
tions mandate.
Based on this Court's precedents and the evidence in the
record, we hold that the fuel producers have standing. We
therefore reverse the contrary judgment of the U. S. Court
of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit and remand for that court to
consider the merits of the fuel producers' legal claims.
I
A
As relevant here, the Clean Air Act requires the Environ-
mental Protection Agency, or EPA, to periodically “pre-
scribe . . . standards” that limit emissions of certain air pol-
lutants from new motor vehicles. 42 U. S. C. § 7521(a)(1).
To promote uniformity in vehicle emissions regulations, the
Act also preempts state standards “relating to the control of
emissions from new motor vehicles.” § 7543(a).
But the Act's preemption provision exempts California.
Under certain circumstances, California may adopt emissions
standards for new motor vehicles that are more stringent
than EPA's. California may do so when it concludes that
more stringent standards are needed to meet “compelling
and extraordinary conditions. ” § 7543( b)(1)(B). Other
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106 DIAMOND
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States may also adopt California's stricter limits on emis-
si
ons from new motor vehicles, but may not adopt or enforce
state standards that differ from California's. § 7507.
The upshot of this system is that EPA sets nationwide
emissions standards for new motor vehicles; California in
limited circumstances may set more stringent emissions
standards for vehicles sold in the State; and other States
may either follow EPA's standards or adopt California's but
may not set their own.
Over the years, California has often requested and re-
ceived EPA approval for stricter emissions standards to
combat local California air-quality problems like smog. See,
e. g., 38 Fed. Reg. 10319 (1973).
Beginning in 2005, California also attempted to use its
unique preemption exception as one means to address global
climate change. As relevant here, the State asked EPA for
approval of regulations that limit greenhouse-gas emissions
and force electrifcation of the new vehicle feet sold in the
State. See 73 Fed. Reg. 12157 (2008).
In 2008, under the George W. Bush administration, EPA
denied California's frst such request. EPA explained that
the Clean Air Act permits California to enact standards to
address local and regional pollution where the causal factors
are tied to California. But EPA reasoned that the authority
granted to California did not extend to efforts to combat
global climate change. See id., at 12156–12157, 12168.
Since then, as Presidential administrations have come and
gone, EPA has repeatedly altered its legal position on
whether the Clean Air Act authorizes California regulations
t argeti ng greenhouse-gas emissi ons from new motor
vehicles.
This case involves California's 2012 request for EPA ap-
proval of new California regulations. As relevant here,
those regulations generally require automakers (i) to limit
average greenhouse-gas emissions across their feets of new
motor vehicles sold in the State and (ii) to manufacture a
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107
Opinion of the Court
certain percentage of electric vehicles as part of their vehicle
feets.
Cal. Code Regs., tit. 13, §§ 1961.3, 1962.2 (2022).
The greenhouse-gas emissions limits remain in force indef-
nitely into the future, and the specifc requirements for elec-
tric vehicles in new vehicle feets run through model year
2025. See ibid. (EPA has separately approved a new Cali-
fornia electric-vehicle mandate that applies through model
year 2035 and beyond; that separate set of regulations is not
at issue in this suit.
1
)
Under President Obama, EPA reversed its legal position
and, in 2013, allowed the California regulations to take ef-
fect. 78 Fed. Reg. 2112 (2013). Then in 2019, under Presi-
dent Trump, EPA fipped back and rescinded approval of the
California regulations. 84 Fed. Reg. 51328 (2019). In 2022,
under President Biden, EPA again reversed course and rein-
stated approval of California's regulations. 87 Fed. Reg.
14333 (2022). That is where things stand as of now, al-
though President Trump has directed EPA to again recon-
sider its approval of California's standards. Exec. Order
No. 14154, 90 Fed. Reg. 8353–8354 (2025).
To date, acting pursuant to the Clean Air Act, 17 States
and the District of Columbia have copied California's
greenhouse-gas emissions standards for new motor vehicles,
the electric-vehicle mandate, or both. Together with Cali-
fornia, those jurisdictions account for about 40 percent of
America's market for new cars and light-duty trucks.
B
In 2022, after EPA reinstated approval of California's 2012
regulations, several fuel producers sued EPA in the D. C.
Circuit. The fuel producers primarily argued that EPA
lacked authority under the Clean Air Act to approve the Cal-
ifornia regulations. They reasoned that the regulations did
1
Acting under the Congressional Review Act, Congress recently passed
and the President signed legislation to block that separate set of California
regulations. See H. J. Res. No. 88, 119th Cong., 1st Sess. (2025).
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not target a local California air-quality problem—as they
say
is required by the Clean Air Act—but instead were de-
signed to address global climate change.
The fuel producers manufacture and sell automobile fuels
such as gasoline, diesel, and ethanol. For example, Ameri-
can Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers is a national trade
association that represents many American fuel companies
that produce and sell gasoline and other liquid fuels for auto-
mobiles. Diamond Alternative Energy sells renewable die-
sel, an alternative to traditional petroleum-derived diesel.
Valero Renewable Fuels Company manufactures and sells
ethanol.
To establish Article III standing for their D. C. Circuit
challenge, the fuel producers submitted 14 declarations and
devoted two pages of their opening brief to standing. In
one declaration, for example, an analyst for American Fuel &
Petrochemical Manufacturers explained that “the demand
for gasoline and diesel fuel will be depressed” by California's
regulations (also adopted by 17 other States) because they
“require the sale of vehicles that use less gasoline and diesel
fuel” or “use no liquid fuel at all.” App. 172–174. As sup-
port, the declaration quoted California's own estimate that
“its regulations would cause `substantial reductions in de-
mand for gasoline exceeding $1 billion beginning in 2020 and
increasing to over $10 billion in 2030.' ” Id., at 173. Vari-
ous fuel producers further stated that those “injuries would
be substantially ameliorated if EPA's decision” to reinstate
the waiver “were set aside.” Id., at 137, 181.
Notably, in the D. C. Circuit, EPA did not argue that the
fuel producers lacked Article III standing. EPA's silence on
standing was telling—the proverbial dog that did not bark—
because EPA routinely challenges a party's standing when
the agency believes that injury in fact, causation, or redress-
ability is questionable. So EPA's failure to do so here tends
to suggest that EPA believed that the fuel producers had
standing.
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Opinion of the Court
California, along with other States that chose to adopt Cal-
i
fornia's regulations, intervened in the D. C. Circuit to defend
EPA's approval of those regulations. To support its motion
to intervene, California submitted declarations emphasizing
the importance of the regulations—now and in the future—
to meeting California's emissions-control goals. For exam-
ple, a California offcial responsible for Clean Air Act compli-
ance stated that, without the regulations, “it is reasonable to
expec t that there wou ld be fewer ” elec tr ic veh icles
“produced and sold . . . , and thus additional gasoline-fueled
vehicles produced and sold during these model years.” Id.,
at 110. All of that “would increase criteria pollutant emis-
sions,” as California's own “modeling has confrmed.” Ibid.
Another California offcial explained that invalidating the
feet-wide emissions standards and electric-vehicle mandate
“would result in higher greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant
emissions” from the “additional gasoline-fueled cars” that
would be produced and sold. Id., at 115.
After the D. C. Circuit granted California's motion to in-
tervene, however, California completely changed its tune
about the continuing impact of the regulations. In its mer-
its briefng in that court, California suddenly argued that the
fuel producers lacked Article III standing because they had
not “established any probability” that automobile “manu-
facturers would change course if EPA's decision were va-
cated.” Brief for State and Local Government Respondent-
Intervenors in No. 22–1081 (CADC), p. 15. Specifcally,
California suggested that because of supposed “surging con-
sumer demand” for electric vehicles, invalidating the feet-
w ide emissi ons standards and electr ic-vehicle mandate
wou ld not cause veh icle manufac turers to make more
gasoline-powered vehicles. Id., at 14. Therefore, Califor-
nia argued that judicial invalidation of the California regula-
tions was not likely to redress the fuel producers' injuries.
The D. C. Circuit agreed with California and held that the
fuel producers lacked Article III standing. Ohio v. EPA, 98
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110 DIAMOND
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Opinion of the Court
F. 4th 288, 300 (2024). The court explained that redressabil-
ity
depended on how third-party automakers would act in
the absence of California's feet-wide emissions standards
and electric-vehicle mandate. According to the D. C. Cir-
cuit, the fuel producers failed to “cite any record evidence”
or “fle additional affdavits or other evidence” demonstrat-
ing that automakers would respond to invalidation of the
regulations by producing fewer electric vehicles and more
gasoline-powered vehicles. Id., at 303 (quotation marks and
alteration omitted).
2
This Court granted certiorari limited to the question of
whether the fuel producers have Article III standing. 604
U. S. 1065 (2024).
II
Article III of the Constitution confnes the jurisdiction of
federal courts to “Cases” and “Controversies.” § 2, cl. 1.
For a lawsuit to constitute a case within the meaning of Arti-
cle III, the plaintiff must have standing to sue. To demon-
strate standing, plaintiffs must answer a basic question—
“ `What's it to you?' ” FDA v. Alli ance for H ippocratic
Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 379 (2024) (quoting A. Scalia, The
Doctrine of Standing as an Essential Element of the Separa-
tion of Powers, 17 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 881, 882 (1983)). In
other words, plaintiffs must show that they possess “a `per-
sonal stake' in the dispute” and are not mere bystanders.
2
The D. C. Circuit opined that the California regulations expire after
model year 2025, making it unlikely that automakers would “change
course” even if the court “were to vacate the waiver.” 98 F. 4th, at 302.
In its briefng before this Court, EPA acknowledged that the D. C. Circuit
was factually incorrect on that point—California in fact may keep its feet-
wide emissions standards in place indefnitely into the future. Brief for
Federal Respondents in Opposition 12–13; see Cal. Code Regs., tit. 13,
§ 1961.3(a). It may be that some of the D. C. Circuit's standing analysis
stemmed from a misunderstanding about when the California feet-wide
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602 U. S., at 379 (quoting TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594
U
. S. 413, 423 (2021)).
“By limiting who can sue, the standing requirement imple-
ments `the Framers' concept of the proper—and properly
limited—role of the courts in a democratic society.' ” 602
U. S., at 380 (quoting J. Roberts, Article III Limits on Statu-
tory Standing, 42 Duke L. J. 1219, 1220 (1993)). Standing
doctrine also “ `tends to assure that the legal questions
presented to the court will be resolved, not in the rarifed
atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual
context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the conse-
quences of judicial action.' ” 602 U. S., at 379 (quoting Val-
ley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Sepa-
ration of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982)).
This Court's “cases have established that the irreducible
constitutional minimum of standing contains three ele-
ments”: injury in fact, causation, and redressability. Lujan
v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992).
The frst requirement, injury in fact, requires the plaintiff
to demonstrate an injury that is “concrete,” “particularized,”
and “actual or imminent, not speculative.” Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 381 (quotation marks
omitted). “Monet ary costs are of course an i n jury. ”
United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 676 (2023).
The second and third requirements, causation and redress-
ability, are usually “fip sides of the same coin.” Alliance
for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 380 (quotation marks
omitted). Causation requires the plaintiff to show “that the
injury was likely caused by the defendant,” and redressabil-
ity requires the plaintiff to demonstrate “that the injury
would likely be redressed by judicial relief.” TransUnion,
594 U. S., at 423. “If a defendant's action causes an injury,
enjoining the action or awarding damages for the action will
typically redress that injury.” Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine, 602 U. S., at 381. To be sure, redressability “can
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still pose an independent bar in some cases,” but “the two
key
questions in most standing disputes are injury in fact
and causation.” Id., at 381, and n. 1. The additional re-
dressability requirement generally serves to ensure that
there is a suffcient “relationship between `the judicial relief
requested' and the `injury' suffered.” California v. Texas,
593 U. S. 659, 671 (2021) (quoting Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S.
737, 753, n. 19 (1984)); see Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S.
255, 292–293 (2023).
Importantly, if a plaintiff is “an object of the action (or
forgone action) at issue,” then “there is ordinarily little ques-
tion that the action or inaction has caused him injury, and
that a judgment preventing or requiring the action will re-
dress it.” Lujan, 504 U. S., at 561–562.
When the plaintiff is not the object of a government regu-
lation, however, causation and redressability often depend on
how regulated third parties not before the court will act in
response to the government regulation or judicial relief.
See Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 383.
Courts must distinguish the “predictable” from the “specula-
tive” effects of government action or judicial relief on third
parties. Ibid.; see also Department of Commerce v. New
York, 588 U. S. 752, 768 (2019). With respect to causation
(and redressability), a court must conclude that “ `third par-
ties will likely react' ” to the government regulation (or judi-
cial relief ) “ `in predictable ways' ” that will likely cause (or
redress) the plaintiff's injury. Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine, 602 U. S., at 383 (quoting California, 593 U. S.,
at 675).
Here, the fuel producers say that they suffered injury in
fact caused by the California regulations. They point out
that the entire purpose of California's feet-wide emissions
standards and electric-vehicle mandate is to reduce the use
of gasoline and other liquid fuels in motor vehicles as com-
pared to what otherwise would occur in a free market. The
regulations cause automakers to, among other things, pro-
duce fewer gasoline-powered vehicles. That in turn causes
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fewer gasoline sales, leading to a monetary injury in fact for
producers
of gasoline and other liquid fuels.
As to redressability, the fuel producers say that invalidat-
ing the California regulations would likely redress their in-
jury because it would remove a regulatory impediment to
the sale and use of their products. They further contend
that, absent the reg u lati ons, automakers wou ld l ikely
produce fewer electric vehicles and more gasoline-powered
vehicles. Production of those vehicles would predictably
lead to more purchases of gasoline and other liquid fuels sold
by the fuel producers. In short, they argue that when the
government tells automakers to make more cars that use less
gasoline, there should be little question that the gasoline pro-
ducers have standing to sue.
In this Court, neither EPA nor California meaningfully
disputes injury in fact or causation. But they argue that the
fuel producers did not establish redressability. According to
EPA and California, even if the California regulations are
invalidated, the fuel producers have not shown that vehicle
manufacturers would reduce the percentage of their feets
that consist of electric vehicles (or otherwise stated, increase
the percentage that consists of gasoline-powered vehicles).
EPA and California suggest that the automobile market has
changed—apparently permanently in their view—and strong
consumer demand for (and manufacturers' supply of ) electric
vehicles means that automakers are unlikely to manufacture
or sell any additional gasoline-powered cars even if the Cali-
fornia regulations are invalidated.
III
We hold that the fuel producers have standing to sue.
To begin, the injury in fact and causation elements of the
fuel producers' st andi ng, wh ich no par ty disputes, are
straightforward.
As for injury in fact, the fuel producers make money by
selling fuel. Therefore, the decrease in purchases of gaso-
line and other liquid fuels resulting from the California regu-

114 DIAMOND
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lations hurts their bottom line. Those monetary costs “are
of
course an injury.” United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670,
676 (2023).
As for causation, EPA's approval authorized California
(and ultimately 17 other States) to enforce regulations that
require lower feet-wide greenhouse-gas emissions and the
electrifcation of automakers' vehicle feets, thereby reducing
purchases of liquid fuels such as gasoline. The regulations
likely cause fuel producers' monetary injuries because the
regulations likely cause a decrease in purchases of gasoline
and other liquid fuels for automobiles. Indeed, that is the
whole point of the regulations.
As for redressability, invalidating the California regula-
tions would likely redress at least some of the fuel producers'
monetary injuries.
3
Even “one dollar” of additional revenue
for the fuel producers would satisfy the redressability com-
ponent of Article III standing. Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski,
592 U. S. 279, 292 (2021). And as we will explain, it is
“likely” that invalidating the California regulations would
result in more revenue for the fuel producers from additional
sales of gasoline and other liquid fuels. FDA v. Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 367, 380 (2024).
A
When a plaintiff is the “object” of a government regula-
tion, there should “ordinarily” be “little question” that the
regulation causes injury to the plaintiff and that invalidating
the regulation would redress the plaintiff's injuries. Lujan
v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 561 (1992).
The fuel producers here might be considered an object of
the California regulations because the regulations explicitly
3
In this opinion, we use the term “invalidated” as shorthand to describe
the result from setting aside EPA's approval of the California regulations.
Under D. C. Circuit precedent, setting aside EPA's approval would mean
that California may not enforce its greenhouse-gas emissions limits and
electric-vehicle mandate for new vehicle feets.
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seek to restrict the use of gasoline and other liquid fuels
i
n automobiles. When the government prohibits or impedes
Company A from using Company B's product, then both
Company A and Company B might be deemed objects of the
government action at issue. For example, if the govern-
ment bans hot dog sales in stadiums, then hot dog manufac-
turers, not just stadiums, might be considered objects of the
regulation. If the government prohibits aluminum bats in
Little League, then aluminum bat manufacturers, not only
Little League, might be objects of the regulation. If the
government bans bookstores from selling certain publishers'
books, then those publishers, not just bookstores, might be
objects of the regulation. See Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S.
154, 169 (1997); Energy Future Coalition v. EPA, 793 F. 3d
141, 144–145 (CADC 2015).
This Court has applied principles of that kind in various
contexts. For example, when a State prohibited parents
from sending their children to private schools, affected
schools had standing to sue, even though parents were the
directly regulated parties. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters,
268 U. S. 510, 535–536 (1925). And when the Federal Com-
munications Commission announced that it would deny a li-
cense to any broadcasting station that conducted certain
business with broadcasting networks, a broadcasting net-
work (CBS) had standing to sue even though broadcasting
stations were the directly regulated parties. See Columbia
Broadcasting System, Inc. v. United States, 316 U. S. 407,
422 (1942).
According to the fuel producers, when a regulation targets
the provider of a product or service by limiting another enti-
ty's use of that product or service, the targeted provider or-
dinarily has standing—without the need for much additional
analysis. See Bennett, 520 U. S., at 169. So too here, ac-
cording to the fuel producers. As they see it, the govern-
ment is targeting the use of gasoline and other liquid fuels
by regulating at the assembly line rather than the gas pump.
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Either way, they say that the California regulations pose a
lega
l barrier to the fuel producers' sale of their products and
deny them the opportunity to compete in the marketplace
without government interference. And the fuel producers
assert that removing a coercive government standard that
restricts the use of their products would allow them to com-
pete more fully in the marketplace and thus provide redress
for purposes of Article III. See ibid.; Energy Future Coali-
tion, 793 F. 3d, at 144–145.
That argument is not without force and, at a minimum,
highlights how the government might seek to indirectly tar-
get a product or service “through a conduit” in addition to
regulating it directly. Brief for Petitioners 43. But we ul-
timately need not further consider that argument in this case
because, regardless, the fuel producers have readily demon-
strated their standing.
B
This case presents what the Court has described as the
“familiar” circumstance where government regulation of a
business “may be likely” to cause injuries to other linked
businesses. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S.,
at 384. As the Court has explained, “when the government
regulates (or under-regulates) a business, the regulation (or
lack thereof ) may cause downstream or upstream economic
injuries to others in the chain, such as certain manufacturers,
retailers, suppliers, competitors, or customers.” Ibid.
In cases of that kind, this Court's analysis of causation and
redressability has recognized commonsense economic reali-
ties. When third party behavior is predictable, common-
sense inferences may be drawn. Importantly, EPA agrees
that “commonsense economic principles” can be useful when
evaluating Article III standing. Brief for Federal Respond-
ents 39.
In this case, those commonsense economic principles sup-
port the fuel producers' standing. The California regula-
tions force automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles
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and fewer gasoline-powered vehicles. See Bennett, 520
U
. S., at 169.
4
The standards force automakers to produce a
feet of vehicles that, as a whole, uses signifcantly less gaso-
line and other liquid fuels. California's regulation of auto-
makers' vehicle feets in turn will likely “cause downstream
or upstream economic injuries to others in the chain,” such
as producers of gasoline and other liquid fuels. Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 384.
By the same token, the fuel producers persuasively con-
tend that invalidating California's regulations would likely
mean more gasoline-powered automobiles, which would in
turn likely mean more sales of gasoline and other liquid fuels
by the fuel producers. See Bennett, 520 U. S., at 170–171.
Because the fuel producers have suffered classic monetary
injury caused by a government regulatory action, it would
be surprising and unusual if invalidating the regulations did
not redress the fuel producers' injuries. See Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 381 (“If a defendant's ac-
tion causes an injury, enjoining the action . . . will typically
redress that injury”). After all, the fact that a regulation
was designed to produce a particular effect on the market
ordinarily means that the likely result of vacating that regu-
lation would be to reduce that effect on the market. Cf.
Lujan, 504 U. S., at 561–562.
EPA and California push back on that reasoning, asserting
that this case is unusual and does not ft the typical pattern.
They suggest that the new vehicle market has developed
in a way that even if the California regulations are invali-
4
Recall that the California regulations at issue impose a direct electric-
vehicle mandate along with feet-wide limits on average greenhouse-gas
emissions from new motor vehicles. Automakers may comply with the
feet-wide emissions limits by producing more electric vehicles, more low-
emission vehicles, or both. See Cal. Code Regs., tit. 13, §§ 1961.3(a)(1),
(a)(4). For the sake of simplicity, we refer to the production of additional
electric vehicles, recognizing that some manufacturers may also (or alter-
natively) manufacture additional low-emission vehicles to comply with Cal-
ifornia's feet-wide emissions limits.
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dated, automakers would not likely manufacture or sell more
gasol
ine-powered cars than they do now.
To begin with, that is an odd argument for EPA and Cali-
fornia to advance. After all, if invalidating the regulations
would change nothing in the market, why are EPA and Cali-
fornia enforcing and defending the regulations? The whole
point of the regulations is to increase the number of electric
vehicles in the new automobile market beyond what consum-
ers would otherwise demand and what automakers would
otherwise manufacture and sell. And EPA and California
are presumably defending the regulations because they think
that the regulations still make a difference in the market.
In all events, record evidence confrms what common sense
tells us: Invalidating the regulations likely (not certainly, but
likely) would make a difference for fuel producers because
automakers would likely manufacture more vehicles that run
on gasoline and other liquid fuels.
First, the fuel producers' standing declarations explain
that California's regulations have historically harmed the
fuel producers by causing a decrease in purchases of fuel.
The declarations further quote California's estimate that its
standards would produce “ `substantial reductions in demand
for gasoline exceeding $1 billion beginning in 2020 and in-
creasing to over $10 billion in 2030.' ” App. 173 (emphasis
added). The fuel producers' declarations emphasize, more-
over, that California itself asserted that the State's stand-
ards would reduce emissions partly through “ `reductions in
fuel production.' ” Id., at 148. The declarations also note
that California recognized that the “oil and gas industry” and
“fuel providers” would likely be “most adversely affected”
by the regulations due to “the resulting substantial reduc-
tions in demand for gasoline.” Id., at 137 (quotation marks
omitted).
Second, the record reveals that California itself stated in
2021, when asking EPA to reinstate the regulations, that the
regulations are “critical not just for immediate emissions re-
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119
Opinion of the Court
ductions” but also for “greater emission reductions in the
f
uture.” Id., at 66 (emphasis added). And after the fuel
producers sued EPA in 2022, California moved to intervene
and attached expert declarations stating that California's
standards are likely to decrease fuel use. Specifcally, Cali-
fornia's experts opined that absent California's regulations,
“fewer” electric vehicles “are likely to be sold than would
otherwise have been . . . and thus additional gasoline-fueled
vehicles would be sold.” Id., at 115; see also id., at 110.
California itself therefore acknowledged that its regulations
were still having an impact and that invalidating the regula-
tions would likely affect the automobile market and increase
demand for gasoline and other liquid fuels.
Third, EPA too has stated that the California regulations
are likely to reduce consumption of fuel. When approving
California's regulations, EPA repeatedly affrmed that Cali-
fornia “needs” its standards “to address compelling and
extraordinary air quality conditions in the state.” 87 Fed.
Reg. 14334; see id., at 14353. And in proposing to amend
California's state implementation plan under the Clean Air
Act more than two years after this suit was fled, EPA
credited California's estimates that the regulations would
continue reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in California
through at least 2037. 89 Fed. Reg. 82558 (2024).
Fourth, fve automakers who have invested heavily in elec-
tric vehicles—and thus have an interest in the government
continuing to support and favor that market—intervened on
the side of EPA and California in the Court of Appeals.
Their motion to intervene predicted that, absent California's
regulations, other automakers would seek a competitive ad-
vantage over them by selling fewer electric vehicles and
more gasoline-powered vehicles. See Motion To Intervene
of Ford Motor Co. et al. in No. 22–1081 (CADC), pp. 4,
11–12, 14. As with California's motion to intervene, the
automakers' assessment that the regulations make a differ-
ence—and that invalidating them would make a difference—
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120 DIAMOND
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indicates that the regulations are still likely having a real-
wor
ld impact on the automobile market.
In short, the commonsense economic inferences about the
operation of the automobile market—combined with the
statements of the fuel producers, California, EPA, and the
vehicle manufacturers—make it suffciently “predictable”
that invalidating California's regulations would likely re-
dress the fuel producers' injury. Alliance for Hippocratic
Medicine, 602 U. S., at 383.
Article III's redressability requirement serves to align in-
juries and remedies. The primary goals of that requirement
are to ensure that plaintiffs do not sue the wrong parties and
that courts do not issue advisory opinions. The redressabil-
ity requirement should not be misused, however, to prevent
the targets of government regulations from challenging reg-
ulations that threaten their businesses. EPA and California
cite no case where Article III's redressability requirement
has been applied to prevent challenges to a regulation set-
ting a permanent ceiling on the sale or use of a business's
products. Here, the fuel producers have established their
standing to challenge EPA's approval of the California
regulations.
5
C
EPA and California further argue, however, that the fuel
producers had to introduce still more evidence—for example,
affdavits either from expert economists or from directly reg-
ulated automakers explaining how they would respond to a
court order invalidating California's regulations. See Brief
for Federal Respondents 17–18, 43–44; Brief for State Re-
spondents 13.
We disagree. This Court has not demanded that plaintiffs
introduce evidence from expert economists or from directly
regulated third parties to show how third parties would
5
We need not decide whether every piece of record evidence described
above is necessary to establish standing here. The totality of record evi-
dence, along with commonsense inferences about market realities, readily
suffces to demonstrate standing.
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Opinion of the Court
likely respond to a government regulation or invalidation
thereof
. Rather, to show redressability, the plaintiff must
simply “show a predictable chain of events” that would likely
result from judicial relief and redress the plaintiff 's injury.
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 385. In De-
partment of Commerce v. New York, to take just one exam-
ple, this Court considered a challenge by several States and
other plaintiffs to the Government's decision to reinstate a
citizenship question on the census. 588 U. S. 752, 758–759
(2019). The States argued that reinstating the question
would likely cause noncitizens to respond to the census at
lower rates, thereby causing noncitizen residents of the
States to be undercounted, and in turn leading to reduced
representation and other harms for those States. Id., at
766–767. The Court did not require the States to produce
affdavits or testimony from noncitizens explaining that they
would not respond to the census in light of the citizenship
question.
Requiring the plaintiff to produce affdavits from regu-
lated parties would be especially problematic in cases of this
kind. It would render the plaintiff 's ability to obtain judi-
cial review dependent on the happenstance of whether the
plaintiff and the relevant regulated parties are aligned and
share litigation interests—and whether the regulated party
is willing to publicly oppose (and possibly antagonize) the
government regulator by supporting the plaintiff 's suit.
Such a rule would create incentives for gamesmanship and
could make it diffcult or impossible to establish standing in
cases where the standing analysis should be straightforward.
A heightened “proof of redressability” requirement of that
kind would ultimately close the courthouse doors to many
traditional challenges to agency action. Cf. id., at 768.
Such a rule has little to commend it, and we decline to
adopt it.
D
In ruling against EPA and California, we recognize that
there may conceivably be some atypical instances where a
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122 DIAMOND
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Opinion of the Court
market has permanently and dramatically changed such that
i
nvalidating a challenged regulation would have no effect on
the market in question, thereby defeating redressability.
6
But that is likely to be a fairly rare and unusual scenario, for
a couple of reasons.
First, we can assume that governments do not usually con-
tinue to enforce and defend regulations that have no continu-
ing effect in the relevant market. EPA and California con-
tinue to enforce these regulations, and for three years, EPA
and California have tenaciously defended them in court. So
it is diffcult to put much stock in their suggestion that invali-
dating the regulations (in California and 17 other States)
would have zero effect on the new vehicle market in America
both now and in the future. Simply put, EPA's and Cali-
fornia's own actions—their statements, their enforcement
decisions, their litigation positions—undermine the central
premise of their redressability argument. When as here a
government seeks to justify its regulatory actions by, on the
one hand, touting the consequences for fuel usage and emis-
sions while, on the other, maintaining that those same regu-
lations are unreviewable because there are no consequences,
courts can appropriately be skeptical. Judges “are `not re-
quired to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are
free.' ” Department of Commerce, 588 U. S., at 785 (quoting
United States v. Stanchich, 550 F. 2d 1294, 1300 (CA2 1977)
(Friendly, J.)).
Second, EPA and California's view of redressability fails to
account for dynamic markets and the effects of interrelated
economic forces and regulatory programs that change over
time. Supply and demand may depend on, among other
things, the strength of the overall economy, regulatory emis-
sions standards, international developments, government
subsidies to particular industries, and tax incentives, among
many other factors. Predicting developments in complex
6
Or a regulation may have expired, making the legal challenge moot.
But that scenario is covered by mootness doctrine, not redressability.

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123
Opinion of the Court
markets can be a diffcult and uncertain endeavor, particu-
lar
ly when various governments' regulatory, spending, and
tax policies are at play.
7
To deny standing based on a theory that invalidating an
important regulation would actually have zero impact on a
dynamic and heavily regulated market requires a degree of
economic and political clairvoyance that is diffcult for a court
to maintain. That is particularly so when the government
regulation itself may be skewing the market at issue. So
courts should exercise caution before denying standing be-
cause of a claimed lack of redressability rooted in question-
able economic speculation.
In advancing their argument, EPA and California also
point out that some automakers are now in compliance with
California's regulatory mandates. But that is not surpris-
ing. Compliance with government regulation usually sug-
gests regulatory effect, not the absence of effect. Nor is
such compliance especially probative of how all automakers
are acting or would respond to a court order invalidating
California's regulations—including in the 17 other States
that have adopted those regulations. In the D. C. Circuit,
California pointed to evidence that seven automakers had
announced future plans to sell more electric vehicles than
7
Even if it appears that a market may have temporarily rendered a
regulation irrelevant, the market may shift again. This market may be
an example. Even supposing that California's regulations as of 2022 were
momentarily having no continuing effect on the automobile market due to
surging consumer demand for electric vehicles, the demand for electric
vehicles may have slowed or at least not matched what might have been
anticipated. See, e. g., I. Penn, Electric Vehicles Died a Century Ago.
Could That Happen Again? N. Y. Times, May 27, 2025, section B, p. 1; R.
Felton, EV Sales Streak Grinds to a Sudden Halt, Wall Street Journal,
May 8, 2025; Carmakers Scale Down Electrifcation Plans as EV Demand
Slows, Reuters, Sept. 12, 2024; C. Otts, GM Delays Electric Vehicle Build-
out in New Sign of Weakening Demand, Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2024;
J. Ewing, Carmakers Downshift on E.V. Spending as Sales Growth Slows,
N. Y. Times, Nov. 10, 2023, section B, p. 1.
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California's regulations required. Brief for State and Local
Gover
nment Respondent-Intervenors in No. 22–1081, at 14.
But California offered no evidence that the cited press re-
leases from seven automakers represented commitments
defnite enough to withstand potential future market fuctu-
ations and regulatory changes. Nor did California offer evi-
dence that the statements of those seven automakers repre-
sented the likely behavior of the entire automaking industry,
including potential new market entrants. Recall that the
automakers' own motion to intervene in the Court of Appeals
suggested otherwise—that if the regulations were invali-
dated, other automakers would seek a competitive advantage
by manufacturing more gasoline-powered cars.
In sum, this case does not present the unusual scenario
where invalidating a challenged government restriction on
businesses in a competitive market is not likely to have any
effect. Here, it may not be certain, but it is at least “pre-
dictable” that invalidating the California regulations would
likely result in the fuel producers ultimately selling more
gasoline and other liquid fuels. See Alliance for Hippo-
cratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 383.
E
Two of our colleag ues have filed dissenting opini ons.
They primarily object to the Court's decision to grant certio-
rari in this case. But having granted certiorari, we proceed
to decide the question presented for our review.
Justice Sotomayor suggests that the D. C. Circuit's erro-
neous standing analysis was attributable to its misunder-
standing about the duration of California's feet-wide emis-
sions standards. See post, at 127 (dissenting opinion). So in
her view, the Court need only correct that factual misunder-
standing and remand the case to the D. C. Circuit. See post,
at 128. But the D. C. Circuit's standing analysis did not rest
entirely on that misunderstanding. And neither EPA nor
California asked for such a remand—even though they ac-
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Opinion of the Court
knowledged the D. C. Circuit's misunderstanding. More-
over
, because this litigation has gone on for three years, we
see no good reason to waste the parties' time and resources
by remanding for further analysis of the standing issue in
the Court of Appeals when the parties have comprehensively
briefed it and we can readily resolve it now.
Justice Jackson separately argues that the Court does
not apply standing doctrine “evenhandedly.” Post, at 128
(dissenting opinion). A review of standing cases over the
last few years disproves that suggestion. See, e. g., Alliance
for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S., at 374; United States v.
Texas, 599 U. S., at 674; Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255,
291–292 (2023); Reed v. Goertz, 598 U. S. 230, 234 (2023);
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. 413, 417–418 (2021);
California v. Texas, 593 U. S. 659, 666 (2021); Uzuegbunam,
592 U. S., at 282–283; Thole v. U. S. Bank N. A., 590 U. S.
538, 541–542 (2020); Department of Commerce, 588 U. S., at
766–768. In this case, as we have explained, this Court's
recent standing precedents support the conclusion that the
fuel producers have standing.
***
This case concerns only standing, not the merits. EPA
and California may or may not prevail on the merits in de-
fending EPA's approval of the California regulations. But
the justiciability of the fuel producers' challenge to EPA's
approval of the California regulations is evident. Courts
should not “make standing law more complicated than it
needs to be.” Thole v. U. S. Bank N. A., 590 U. S. 538, 547
(2020). The government generally may not target a busi-
ness or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful
regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming
that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of
court as unaffected bystanders. In light of this Court's
precedents and the evidence before the Court of Appeals, the
fuel producers established Article III standing to challenge
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
EPA's approval of the California regulations. We reverse
the
judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Sotomayor, dissenting.
In May 2022, several businesses in the fuel industry chal-
lenged the Environmental Protection Agency's effective re-
instatement of two California vehicle-emissions rules. The
rules in question aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
by requiring vehicle manufacturers to produce more fuel-
effcient cars. Before the D. C. Circuit, petitioners argued,
relying in part on statements from California regulators and
the EPA, that this shift toward fuel effciency would reduce
demand for the fossil fuels they produce, thereby causing
a fnancial injury. Petitioners did not meaningfully address
redressability, likely because they assumed it would follow
naturally from the evidence about injury and causation.
With no dispute over those elements, the case appeared
ready to proceed to the merits.
Then, a factual complication arose. California, which had
intervened to defend its regulations before the D. C. Circuit,
explained that by the time this suit was fled, car manufac-
turers could no longer change their manufacturing schedule
for cars with model years up to 2025. See Brief for Petition-
ers 13–14, 41; Brief for State Respondents 10–11. Evidence
in the record overwhelmingly supported that contention.
See Ohio v. EPA, 98 F. 4th 288, 302–303 (CADC 2024)
(per curiam) (recounting statements to that effect from
Ford, Tesla, Toyota, Chrysler, Hyundai, and Mitsubishi). As
the car manufacturers explained to the court, production
plans are set years in advance and cannot be changed on
short notice. Ibid.
Due in part to petitioners' own briefng, the D. C. Circuit
thought that neither of California's regulations would apply
beyond model year 2025. See Brief for Private Petitioners
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127
Sotomayor, J., dissenting
in No. 22–1081 (CADC), p. 9 (“The program covers vehicles
from
model years 2015 through 2025 . . . ”). So, when the
court considered redressability, it asked only whether vaca-
tur of the rules “would be substantially likely to result in
any change to automobile manufacturers' vehicle feets by
Model Year 2025.” 98 F. 4th, at 302. On that question, the
evidence did not support petitioners, who bore the burden of
proof to establish redressability. Ibid.; see Lujan v. Defend-
ers of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 562 (1992). Thus, the D. C.
Circuit dismissed the petition for lack of standing. 98 F. 4th,
at 306.
Before this Court, the EPA conceded that the D. C. Circuit
had been partly mistaken about the facts. Whereas that
court thought both of California's rules expired with model
year 2025, in fact only one of the two does. See Brief for
Federal Respondents in Opposition 5. That concession
undercut the core factual premise on which the D. C. Circuit's
standing analysis depended. See 98 F. 4th, at 302–303. It
called instead for a new assessment of redressability: Would
manufacturers change their plans for any future, post-2025
model years if the court vacated the fuel-effciency rule?
California now says that, by the time petitioners sued, de-
mand for electric vehicles had expanded so dramatically that
manufacturers would not return to producing more environ-
mentally unfriendly vehicles even if the rules were vacated.
Petitioners say otherwise. Yet the D. C. Circuit never
opined on this purely factual question, and it is hard to see
why this Court should do so in its stead.
Having granted certiorari, the Court relegates to a foot-
note the actual basis for the D. C. Circuit's decision. See
ante, at 110, n. 2. A version of that footnote should have been
the Court's entire opinion in this case. For reasons unknown,
the majority instead conjures up a “heightened `proof of re-
dressability' requirement” that the D. C. Circuit did not
adopt and that no party advanced, and then laboriously “de-
cline[s] to adopt” that requirement. See ante, at 121. I see
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Jackson, J., dissenting
no need to expound on the law of standing in a case where
the
sole dispute is a factual one not addressed below.* In-
deed, as Justice Jackson explains, this case is unlikely to
present a live controversy for much longer regardless of peti-
tioners' standing, as the administration is likely to withdraw
the challenged rules. See post, at 133 (dissenting opinion).
I would simply have vacated the case and remanded it to the
D. C. Circuit to reconsider its redressability analysis, keep-
ing in mind the now corrected timeline for the challenged
vehicle-emissions programs.
Justice Jackson, dissenting.
Standing is a constitutional doctrine meant to promote ju-
dicial restraint. By design, it “ `prevent[s] the judicial proc-
ess from being used to usurp the powers of the political
branches' ” and “helps safeguard the Judiciary's proper—and
proper ly l i mited—role i n our constituti ona l system. ”
United States v. Texas, 599 U. S. 670, 675–676 (2023). But
standing doctrine cannot serve that important purpose if the
Judiciary fails to apply it evenhandedly. When courts adjust
standing requirements to let certain litigants challenge the
actions of the political branches but preclude suits by others
*The majority suggests it can disregard the actual basis for the D. C.
Circuit's decision because (in the majority's view) that court “did not rest”
its analysis “entirely” on its factual error. Ante, at 124. Having granted
certiorari in this case to conduct the factbound standing analysis in the
frst instance, the majority now asserts a remand would “waste . . . time
and resources” because “the parties have comprehensively briefed” the
issue. Ante, at 125. What the parties briefed, however, is whether peti-
tioners bore any evidentiary burden to establish standing at all. See
Brief for Petitioners 24–37 (arguing that, because California's rules are
a “regulatory hurdle” to the sale of petitioners' product, no evidence of
redressability was required). To be sure, the fuel producer petitioners
argued in a single paragraph that they should prevail “[e]ven if [they] were
legally required to produce record evidence to support redressability.”
Id., at 37–38. “But our usual practice is to leave matters of that sort for
remand.” E.M.D. Sales, Inc. v. Carrera, 604 U. S. 45, 54 (2025) (Kava-
naugh, J., for the Court).
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129
Jackson, J., dissenting
with similar injuries, standing doctrine cannot perform its
constrai
ning function. Over time, such selectivity begets ju-
dicial overreach and erodes public trust in the impartiality
of judicial decisionmaking.
Today's ruling runs the risk of setting us down that path.
The Court shelves its usual case-selection standards to re-
vive a fuel-industry lawsuit that all agree will soon be moot
(and is largely moot already). And it rests its decision on a
theory of standing that the Court has refused to apply in
cases brought by less powerful plaintiffs. This case gives
fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests
enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary
citizens. Because the Court had ample opportunity to avoid
that result, I respectfully dissent.
I
In 2022, petrochemical companies and other fuel-industry
groups fled this lawsuit challenging a Government action
under the Clean Air Act.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Clean Air Act into
law in 1963 to “protect and enhance the quality of the Na-
tion's air resources so as to promote the public health and
welfare and the productive capacity of its population.” As
added, 77 Stat. 393, 42 U. S. C. § 7401(b)(1). One of the ways
the Act sought to achieve that goal was by requiring all “new
motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines” sold in the
United States to comply with certain emissions standards
established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
§§ 7521(a)(1), 7522(a)(1).
To ensure that automakers would not have to comply with
a competing patchwork of emissions standards set by various
States, the Act pre-empts state efforts to regulate vehicle
emissions. Under the statute's pre-emption provision, “[n]o
State . . . shall adopt or attempt to enforce any standard
relating to the control of emissions from new motor vehi-
cles.” § 7543(a).
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But, notably, that provision contains an exception for the
St
ate of California, which was the only State whose efforts
to regulate auto emissions predated the Clean Air Act.
Recognizing that “California's unique problems and pioneer-
ing efforts justifed a waiver of the preemption section,”
S. Rep. No. 403, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 33 (1967), Congress
allowed California to adopt more stringent emissions stand-
ards than the Federal Government. § 208, 81 Stat. 501.
Thus, under the current statute, California can obtain a pre-
emption waiver that allows it to adopt emissions standards
that are, “in the aggregate, at least as protective of public
hea lth and welfare as appl icable Federa l st andards. ”
§ 7543(b)(1). The statute specifcally directs EPA to grant
such a waiver unless the agency fnds that California's stand-
ards are “arbitrary and capricious,” not necessary to “meet
compelling and extraordinary conditions,” or incompatible
with specifc statutory requirements. Ibid. Consistent
with that directive, EPA has granted dozens of pre-emption
waivers for California emissions programs over the past sev-
eral decades.
1
This case concerns one of those waivers: a 2013 waiver that
EPA granted for a California emissions program targeting
greenhouse gases. 78 Fed. Reg. 2112. California's pro-
gram had two main components. Id., at 2114. First, it re-
quired automakers to ensure that a certain percentage of
their vehicle feets for model years 2017 to 2025 was com-
posed of electric vehicles. Ibid. Second, it imposed feet-
wide limits on average greenhouse gas emissions; those feet-
wide emissions limits would gradually increase in stringency
through model year 2025, at which point the limits would
remain at 2025 levels permanently. Ibid. Nobody chal-
lenged the waiver in court, and California's program went
into effect without incident.
1
See EPA, Vehicle Emissions California Waivers and Authorizations,
https://www.epa.gov/state-and-local-transportation/vehicle-emissions-
california-waivers-and-authorizations.

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Jackson, J., dissenting
In the years that followed, automakers upped their produc-
ti
on of electric and low-emissions vehicles signifcantly, in-
vesting billions of dollars in new manufacturing facilities and
other infrastructure. Consumer demand for those vehicles
surged, too. So much so that, by 2018, automakers were
selling well over 200,000 fully electric vehicles per year—a
more-than-tenfold increase from the 18,000 vehicles sold in
2011, the year before California sought the waiver from
EPA.
In 2019, however, EPA changed course and rescinded the
waiver. 84 Fed. Reg. 51310. The agency concluded that
California's emissions standards were not necessary “ `to
meet compelling and extraordinary conditions,' ” and were
also pre-empted by a different federal law. Id., at 51328.
Three years later, EPA reversed its position again. In
2022, the agency reinstated the waiver, asserting that its
2019 decision to rescind the waiver rested on an incorrect
understanding of federal law. 87 Fed. Reg. 14332–14333.
That 2022 waiver-reinstatement decision precipitated this
lawsuit. Members of the fuel industry sought review of that
decision in the D. C. Circuit, arguing that it contravened the
Clean Air Act and exceeded EPA's statutory authority. Al-
though EPA's reinstatement of the waiver did not regulate
the fuel industry directly, petitioners claimed that the revival
of California's emissions standards would injure them by
suppressing the sale of gas-powered vehicles and thus quell-
ing consumer demand for their fuel products.
The D. C. Circuit rejected that argument. Ohio v. EPA,
98 F. 4th 288, 294 (2024) (per curiam). The panel unani-
mously held that petitioners lacked standing because they
had failed to show that a court order invalidating the waiver
would actually redress their asserted injury—namely, dimin-
ished demand for fuel. The court reasoned that petitioners'
“injuries would be redressed only if automobile manufactur-
ers responded to vacatur of the waiver by producing and
selling fewer non-conventional vehicles or by altering the
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prices of their vehicles such that fewer non-conventional ve-
h
icles—and more conventional vehicles—were sold.” Id., at
302. But petitioners had “fail[ed] to point to any evidence
affrmatively demonstrating that vacatur of the waiver
would be substantially likely to result in any change to auto-
mobile manufacturers' vehicle feets by Model Year 2025,”
when the court believed California's program would termi-
nate. Ibid.
2
To the contrary, the court concluded, the “only
evidence points in the opposite direction.” Ibid.
Among other evidence, the court cited an expert declara-
tion submitted by California, which had intervened to defend
the waiver. The declarati on documented how electric-
vehicle sales in California had already surpassed state-
mandated levels as a result of rising consumer demand and
automakers' long-term planning choices, “suggesting that va-
catur of the [electric] vehicle mandate would not redress
[p]etitioners' injuries.” Id., at 305. The court also pointed
to a brief from the auto industry echoing the same point and
explaining that “ `both internal sustainability goals and ex-
ternal market forces' are prompting manufacturers to transi-
tion toward electric vehicles, irrespective of California's reg-
ulations.” Id., at 303, n. 8. Based on petitioners' failure to
submit any countervailing evidence, the court found “no
basis to conclude that [p]etitioners' claims are redressable.”
Id., at 305.
Seven months after the D. C. Circuit issued its decision,
President Trump was elected to a second term in offce. We
granted certiorari the following month. 604 U. S. 1065.
One month later, the Government asked us to hold this case
in abeyance while the new administration “reassess[ed] the
basis for and soundness of ” the waiver at issue. Motion of
Federal Respondents To Hold Briefng Schedule in Abeyance
2
As noted above, the electric-vehicle-mandate component of California's
program sunsets with model year 2025, but the other component of the
program—the feet-wide limits on average greenhouse-gas emissions—
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Jackson, J., dissenting
3. We decl i ned to do so and i nstead set th is case for
arg
ument.
II
A
Article III of the Constitution restricts the jurisdiction of
federal courts to actual “Cases” or “Controversies.” That
case-or-controversy requirement limits our power as judges:
It means that we can only resolve concrete legal disputes—
those with real stakes for real people—and we must turn
away litigants who ask us to decide purely hypothetical ques-
tions. Standing doctrine furthers the end of ensuring that
each case has real stakes by requiring anyone who fles a
federal lawsuit to establish, as a threshold matter, that they
have suffered a genuine injury that can actually be redressed
by a cour t. As the major ity aptly puts it, the doctrine
forces every plaintiff to “answer a basic question—` “What's
it to you? ” ' ” Ante, at 7.
The fuel industry's answer to that question here should
give us all pause. In their petition for certiorari, the indus-
try members asserted that California's emissions standards
harmed them by suppressing the sale of gas-powered cars
and thereby driving down demand for fuel. But they later
made clear that any such harm would be exceedingly short
lived: EPA is presently reviewing California's pre-emption
waiver, and as petitioners' counsel told us at oral argument,
the agency is likely to withdraw that waiver imminently,
which will put an end to California's emissions program for
good. Tr. of Oral Arg. 69. In fact, petitioners' counsel was
so confdent of that outcome that he told us he would bet his
“bottom dollar” on it. Ibid.
His confdence is not overstated. President Trump re-
scinded this exact same waiver the last time he was in offce.
And EPA has told us that it is actively reconsidering its deci-
sion to grant the waiver. Because a withdrawal of the
waiver would moot this case, an obvious question arises:
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Why would this Court rush to opine on whether the fuel
i
ndustry's legal challenge raises an Article III “case” or “con-
troversy” when all involved—including petitioners them-
selves—believe that any such “case” or “controversy” will
soon vanish?
The Court had plenty of other options. For one thing, it
could have denied certiorari, recognizing that one of the core
components of California's emissions program—the electric-
vehicle mandate—is about to sunset. Regardless of what
EPA does here, that mandate will terminate in just a few
months, when model year 2025 ends. Automakers are al-
ready accepting preorders on model-year-2026 vehicles, and,
by Thanksgiving, their entire feets for model year 2026 will
be available. This means that even if the electric-vehicle
mandate is currently harming the fuel industry—a dubious
proposition in itself, see Part III–A, infra—that harm will
cease before petitioners brief the actual merits of their chal-
lenge, let alone before any court rules on it.
Alternatively, this Court could have deferred its decision
in this case until after EPA concludes its reassessment of the
waiver, as the Government asked us to do. The Govern-
ment rarely proposes that we withhold judgment after cer-
tiorari is granted, and it did so here before any party had
fled its brief. In the rare cases where the Government does
ask us to defer, we often grant those requests—and we some-
times decide to put cases on hold independently.
3
But, for
some reason, in this case, we rejected the Government's re-
quest and proceeded to render a decision anyway.
A third option, once we granted certiorari, would have
been to simply vacate the judgment and remand the case to
the D. C. Circuit. The D. C. Circuit's opinion appeared to
rest, at least in part, on the erroneous factual assumption
3
We have opted to defer decision with respect to other closely watched
cases in recent months. See, e. g., Bessent v. Dellinger, 604 U. S. –––
(2025) (holding emergency application in abeyance pending expiration of a
temporary restraining order).
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Jackson, J., dissenting
that California's entire emissions program—and not just its
elec
tric-vehicle mandate—would sunset with model year
2025. As the majority observes, “[i]t may be that some of
the D. C. Circuit's standing analysis stemmed from a misun-
derstanding about when the California feet-wide emissions
standards expire.” Ante, at 110, n. 2.
4
Once EPA clarifed
the regulatory timeline in its certiorari brief, it would have
been reasonable for this Court to give the D. C. Circuit an
opportunity to reconsider its analysis on a corrected record.
Cf. Lawrence v. Chater, 516 U. S. 163, 166–167 (1996) (per
curiam) (“We have GVR'd [i. e., granted, vacated, and re-
manded] in light of a wide range of developments, including
. . . changed factual circumstances”). That approach might
have even allowed for a quicker resolution of this matter by
obviating the need for a seven-month detour to this Court.
But the Court granted plenary review instead.
Our insistence on resolving the standing question in this
case strains our usual case-selection standards, which are
highly selective. We typically grant review in just a few
dozen cases each year—a tiny fraction of the thousands of
petitions we receive.
5
That is because, as we have often ex-
plained, ours “is not a court of error correction.” S. Breyer,
Refections on the Role of Appellate Courts: A View From
the Supreme Court, 8 J. App. Prac. & Process 91, 92 (2006).
Rather, we grant review in cases “only for compelling rea-
sons.” Supreme Court Rule 10. This case—concerning a
record-specifc disagreement about standing to sue in a dis-
pute that will soon be moot anyway—hardly cries out for
our involvement.
4
The D. C. Circuit's mistake in this regard could have stemmed from
the fact that, until recently, petitioners themselves seem to have shared
that understanding. See Pet. for Cert. 26 (arguing that “the Court can
decide this case before it becomes moot” because “it will presumably ren-
der a decision before model year 2025 ends”).
5
This Term, for instance, the Court has docketed nearly 4,000 new cases
but will issue fewer than 60 signed opinions.
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To be sure, if the lower courts were divided on some legal
questi
on in this case, then maybe certiorari would be justi-
fed. They are not. Similarly, if the lower courts had been
clamoring for us to clarify how best to evaluate Article III
redressability when plaintiffs assert injuries based on third
parties' responses to regulation, then maybe our interven-
tion would have been sensible. They have not. Indeed, we
recently spoke to the redressability issue—just last Term,
we decided a case addressing our redressability standard at
length. See FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602
U. S. 367 (2024); ante, at 110–125 (citing Alliance for Hippo-
cratic Medicine nearly 20 times).
At most, then, the Court's ruling today amounts to little
more than error correction in the context of a dispute that
all agree will be over soon in any event.
B
This is not to suggest that no one will beneft from the
Court's decision to dabble in error correction in this case.
Our ruling will no doubt aid future attempts by the fuel in-
dustry to attack the Clean Air Act. But Article III requires
a live case or controversy, not merely the potential that a
favorable judgment will help the plaintiff in some future
lawsuit.
Also, I worry that the fuel industry's gain comes at a repu-
tational cost for this Court, which is already viewed by many
as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests. See,
e. g., A. Liptak, Corporations Find a Friend in the Supreme
Court, N. Y. Times, May 4, 2013.
6
Some knowledgeable re-
6
See also L. Epstein & M. Gulati, A Century of Business in the Supreme
Court, 1920–2020, 107 Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes 49, 57 (2022) (concluding,
based on an analysis of all decisions involving business litigants between
1920 and 2020, that the current Court is “signifcantly more likely to favor
business than . . . any Court era in the last 100 years” and “is the frst
Court in the last 100 years that rules in favor of business more often
than not”); A. Feldman, Empirical SCOTUS: The Big Business Court,
SCOTUSblog, Aug. 8, 2018, https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/08/empirical-
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137
Jackson, J., dissenting
searchers have suggested that this reputation is unfounded.
7
But,
at this point, that unfortunate perception seems perva-
sive.
8
And even the mere “appearance” of favoritism,
founded or not, can “undermin[e] confdence in the integrity
of the judiciary.” Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, 575 U. S.
433, 454 (2015); cf. Republican Party of Pa. v. Degraffenreid,
592 U. S. –––, ––– (2021) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial
of certiorari) (arguing that state efforts to prevent voter
fraud are important even “where allegations [of fraud] are
incorrect,” because “ `confdence in the integrity of our elec-
toral process is essential to the functioning of our participa-
tory democracy' ”).
It may be diffcult for the public to know exactly what to
make of the Court's decision to address the feeting legal
issue presented here. For its part, the Court does not ex-
plain why it is so eager to resolve this highly factbound,
scotus-the-big-business-court/ (analyzing data from the 2015 through 2017
Terms, and concluding that the Court “increased its pro-business momen-
tum”); L. Epstein, W. Landes, & R. Posner, When It Comes to Business,
the Right and Left Sides of the Court Agree, 54 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 33,
43–50 (2017) (concluding, based on an analysis of all decisions involving
business litigants between 1946 and 2015, that the “Court's tendency to
favor business in unanimous decisions has increased, not decreased, over
time”).
7
See, e. g., J. Adler, Is the Business of the Court (Still) Business? 713
Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 221, 222 (2025) (citing scholars that have
“criticized the `probusiness' characterization of the Roberts court as a sim-
plistic, insuffciently nuanced, and unhelpful way to characterize or under-
stand the court's jurisprudence”).
8
E. g., E. Pollman, The Supreme Court and the Pro-Business Paradox,
135 Harv. L. Rev. 220, 223 (2021) (“Corporations have often pushed for
rights and challenged external rules and regulations that create responsi-
bility, and as the Supreme Court in recent years has appeared to take
a friendly stance toward their claims, it has developed a `pro-business'
reputation”); F. Salmon, The Most Pro-Business Supreme Court Ever,
Axios (Aug. 4, 2022); J. Surowiecki, Courting Business, The New Yorker
(Feb. 28, 2016); B. Goad, Business Racks Up Wins With Roberts Court,
The Hill (May 5, 2014); A. Liptak, Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business
Interests, N. Y. Times, Dec. 19, 2010.

138 DIAMOND
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soon-to-be-moot dispute. See ante, at 124–125. For some,
th
is silence will only harden their sense that the Court soft-
ens its certiorari standards when evaluating petitions from
moneyed interests, looking past the jurisdictional defects or
other vehicle problems that would typically doom petitions
from other parties. This Court's simultaneous aversion to
hearing cases involving the potential vindication of the
rights of less powerful litigants—workers, criminal defend-
ants, and the condemned, among others
9
—will further fortify
that impression.
In my view, we should have either denied certiorari out-
right or held this matter in abeyance pending EPA's recon-
sideration of its waiver grant. Barring that, we should have
simply vacated and remanded for the D. C. Circuit to recon-
sider its ruling on a clarifed factual record.
III
But that's not all. The Court's substantive Article III
standing analysis, though not entirely implausible, also in-
v ites questi ons about i nconsistent decisi onmak ing and
whether this Court is holding business litigants to the same
standards as everyone else. The majority has made nothing
short of a herculean effort to justify the conclusion that re-
dressability exists on this record. See ante, at 118–120.
Its demonstrated concern for ensuring that the fuel indus-
try's ability to sue is recognized on these facts highlights a
potential gap in the manner in which the Court treats the
claims of plaintiffs pursuing profts versus those seeking to
advance other objectives.
A
It is “a bedrock principle that a federal court cannot re-
dress `injury that results from the independent action of
9
E. g., Nicholson v. W.L. York, Inc., 605 U. S. ––– (2025) (Jackson, J.,
dissenting from denial of certiorari); Shockley v. Vandergriff, 604 U. S. –––
(2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).
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Jackson, J., dissenting
some third party not before the court.' ” Murthy v. Mis-
so
uri, 603 U. S. 43, 57 (2024). Accordingly, “we have `been
reluctant to endorse standing theories that require guess-
work as to how independent decisionmakers will exercise
their judgment.' ” Ibid.
It is indisputable that petitioners' theory of standing re-
quires guesswork as to how independent decisionmakers
(specifcally, automakers and consumers) would respond to a
court order invalidating the pre-emption waiver for Califor-
nia's emissions standards. The only way that such an order
could possibly beneft the fuel industry would be if it ulti-
mately spurred the production, purchase, and usage of more
gas-powered cars. The majority holds, however, that our
usual skepticism about standing theories that turn on inde-
pendent third-party conduct is not warranted because, in its
view, petitioners' theory of redressability rests on “common-
sense economic principles.” Ante, at 116.
I have no quarrel with relying on common sense as a gen-
eral matter. But we should acknowledge that what counts
as a “commonsense” inference to the Justices on this Court
may not be viewed as such by others. And, if anything, the
actual evidence presented in this case suggests that the
majority's “[c]ommon sense is not so common.” J. Bartlett,
Familiar Quotations 299 (18th ed. 2012) (quoting Voltaire,
Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)).
The central problem petitioners face is one of timing.
Had they challenged California's emissions program at its
inception, then commonsense intuitions might have suffced
to establish redressability; indeed, “the whole point” of Cali-
fornia's program was to reduce fuel consumption, as the ma-
jority notes. Ante, at 114. But petitioners did not chal-
lenge the program at its inception. Instead, they challenged
it nearly a decade after California obtained its pre-emption
waiver. By that point, consumer demand for electric and
low-emissions vehicles had grown many times over, and au-
tomakers had invested billions to transform their production
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and marketing strategies. As California's expert attested,
by
the time petitioners fled suit, automakers were “already
selling more qualifying vehicles in California than the State's
standards require.” App. 202.
Furthermore, several major automakers—including Ford,
Volvo, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen—explicitly told the
court below that they “have no plans to abandon their ex-
tensive and growing fnancial commitments to electric ve-
hicles” because their “ long-ter m, world-wide, industry-
transformative planning . . . is already well underway.”
Brief for Industry Respondent-Intervenors in No. 22–1081
(CADC), pp. 12–13. Meanwhile, consumers are now “willing
to pay price premiums for [qualifying vehicles], sometimes
thousands of dollars above the manufacturer's suggested re-
tail price.” App. 192. And demand for electric vehicles
continues to grow, “both in California and nationwide.” Id.,
at 202.
Against the weight of that evidence, the majority's “com-
monsense” intuitions about automaker and consumer behav-
ior are much less certain. Maybe some automakers would
actually produce more gas-powered cars if a court were to
invalidate California's emissions program now. Or maybe
not. Maybe any such uptick in production would cause con-
sumers to buy more gas-powered cars moving forward. Or
maybe not.
The only thing we know for sure is that the onus of estab-
lishing what is likely to happen is on petitioners (the fuel
industry), as the party invoking the jurisdiction of a federal
court. It is the fuel producers who must present evidence
supporting their theory that invalidation of the waiver by a
court will beneft them—intuition alone will not suffce.
When redressability “ `depends on the unfettered choices
made by independent actors not before the courts,' ” it “be-
comes the burden of the plaintiff to adduce facts showing
that those choices have been or will be made in such manner
as to . . . permit redressability.” Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 562 (1992) (emphasis added).
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Petitioners have made little effort to meet that burden.
N
one of the declarations they submitted below say anything
substantive about redressability. None purport to address,
much less refute, any of the data or analyses California's ex-
pert or the automaker intervenors have provided. Indeed,
all of the language that the majority quotes from petitioners'
declarations derives from statements originally made in 2011
and 2012—a full decade before petitioners fled this lawsuit.
See ante, at 118. Although petitioners shrewdly attempt to
bolster their submissions by citing assertions from Califor-
nia's intervention motion, almost all of those assertions con-
cern the nearly defunct electric-vehicle component of Cali-
fornia's program—not the feet-wide emissions limits—
suggesting that any redressability is likely to expire within
months.
10
It is perhaps due to the “paucity of evidence in the record
regarding the redressability of [petitioners'] injuries,” 98
F. 4th, at 303, that petitioners' primary contention is that
they do not need to submit any evidence at all to establish
redressability. Brief for Petitioners 18 (“[W]hen a third-
party response is predictable, no more is needed than a dose
of common sense”). Indeed, petitioners' opening brief de-
votes just two pages to the argument that the actual record
in this case supports redressability. See id., at 37–38 (ar-
guing, in the alternative, that the Court should reverse
“[e]ven if petitioners were legally required to produce record
evidence to support redressability”).
Petitioners' obvious disinterest in developing or relying on
the evidentiary record in this litigation is the reason why
the majority has had to perform yeoman's work in cobbling
together a plausible factual basis for redressability. See,
e. g., ante, at 118–120 (scouring the regulatory history and
scant record for redressability-related evidence). Whatever
one thinks about the majority's labored redressability analy-
10
This, of course, underscores the illogic of this Court's decision to issue
a ruling in this case at all. See Part II–A, supra.
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sis, the effort it expends on this endeavor is striking—espe-
cia
lly when compared to the Court's approach to Article III
standing in cases involving civil rights.
B
The Court's remarkably lenient approach to standing in
this case contrasts starkly with the stern stance it has taken
in cases concerning the rights of ordinary citizens. See, e. g.,
Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 155–156 (1990) (“A fed-
eral court is powerless to create its own jurisdiction by
embellishing otherwise defcient allegations of standing ”).
Here, the Court's “commonsense” inferences readily align
with the fuel industry's assertions of economic injury, even
in the face of conficting evidence. But for less wealthy indi-
vidual plaintiffs, establishing redressability to the Court's
satisfaction is often harder to come by.
Take our decision in Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490 (1975).
There, the Court held that a group of low-income plaintiffs
in upstate New York lacked standing to challenge a zoning
ordinance that effectively barred the construction of afford-
able housing in the town where they wished to move. Id.,
at 493. The plaintiffs had alleged that the ordinance—which
prohibited the construction of multifamily housing virtually
anywhere in town—excluded them from the town, causing
injury, by depressing the supply of affordable housing op-
tions. Id., at 504–507. The Court rejected the claim for
lack of redressability. Ibid.
Under the Court's reasoning, the plaintiffs' “desire to live
in [the town] depended on the efforts and willingness of third
parties to build low- and moderate-cost housing,” and “their
inability to reside in [the town was] the consequence of the
economics of the area housing market, rather than of [the
defendants'] assertedly illegal acts.” Id., at 505–506. Crit-
ically, the Court stated that it was not enough for the plain-
tiffs to show generally that the zoning ordinance suppressed
the overall supply of affordable housing. Rather, we ex-
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143
Jackson, J., dissenting
plained, the plaintiffs needed to show that the invalidation of
the
ordinance by court order would lead to the availability
of specifc units that met their individual needs and fell
within their individual budgets. Id., at 506. “[C]ommon-
sense economic principles,” ante, at 116—say, about the gen-
eral impact of increased housing supply on housing prices—
did not rescue the plaintiffs.
Our decision in Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737 (1984), was
more of the same. There, we held that a group of Black
parents lacked standing to challenge the Internal Revenue
Service's (IRS) policies concerning tax exemptions for pri-
vate schools. Id., at 739–740. The parents had alleged that
the IRS's failure to deny tax-exempt status to racially exclu-
sionary private schools in their communities was hindering
desegregation efforts in the districts their children attended.
Id., at 752–753. This Court held that, although the parents
had stated a cognizable injury, they had not shown that de-
nying tax-exempt status to the exclusionary private schools
would redress that injury. Id., at 758–759.
Notably, in Allen, the Court specifcally observed that the
plaintiffs' redressability theory hinged on speculation about,
among other things, how private-school parents and adminis-
trators would respond to the loss of their tax exemptions
and whether that response would actually affect the racial
makeup of local public schools. Id., at 758. Justice Bren-
nan noted in dissent that “[c]ommon sense alone would rec-
ognize that the elimination of tax-exempt status for racially
discriminatory private schools would serve to lessen the im-
pact that those institutions have in defeating efforts to de-
segregate the public schools.” Id., at 774. But “[c]ommon
sense alone” was not enough for those plaintiffs, either.
For a more recent example, look at Clapper v. Amnesty
Int'l USA, 568 U. S. 398 (2013). In that case, the Court held
that a group of human-rights, media, labor, and legal organi-
zations lacked standing to challenge certain electronic-
surveillance practices under the Foreign Intelligence Sur-
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Jackson, J., dissenting
veillance Act. Id., at 402, 406. Among the reasons we pro-
v
ided for this holding was that any surveillance activities the
Government pursued would ultimately have to be approved
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and
the plaintiffs could “only speculate as to whether that court
will authorize such surveillance.” Id., at 413. We could
have easily drawn a commonsense inference that the FISC
was likely to approve at least some of the surveillance activi-
ties of concern to the plaintiffs, given that (per the Govern-
ment's own statistics) the FISC approved over 99% of the
surveillance-authorization requests it received. Id., at 430
(Breyer, J., dissenting) (citing records showing that the court
approved 1,674 out of 1,676 applications in 2011). But in-
stead we “decline[d] to abandon our usual reluctance to en-
dorse standing theories that rest on speculation about the
decisions of independent actors.” Id., at 414.
I could go on. My point here is not that any of these par-
ticular standing decisions was wrongly decided. Instead, I
am simply observing that the Court seems inconsistent in its
willingness to premise redressability on commonsense in-
ferences about third-party behavior. That inconsistency,
which we reinforce with today's holding, tends to redound to
the beneft of particular litigants. But nothing in Article
III's text or history justifes relying on “commonsense” infer-
ences in one standing context and not another. The Consti-
tution does not distinguish between plaintiffs whose claims
are backed by the Chamber of Commerce and those who seek
to vindicate their rights to fair housing, desegregated
schools, or privacy. But if someone reviewing our case law
harbored doubts about that proposition, today's decision will
do little to dissuade them.
***
It is easy to deprecate the single phrase inscribed atop the
entrance to our courthouse by conceptualizing it as a mere
platitude. But “Equal Justice Under Law” remains this
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Jackson, J., dissenting
Court's guiding light nearly a century after those words
were
frst engraved there. Striving to embody that particu-
lar ideal is what distinguishes our work as judges from that
of the well-heeled lawyers and lobbyists who walk into simi-
larly ornate buildings every day to promote the interests of
their clients. It may sometimes be diffcult to tell one mar-
ble façade from another—especially when some of them
share a common architect.
11
But those of us who are privi-
leged to work inside the Court must not lose sight of this
institution's unique mission and responsibility: to rule with-
out fear or favor. If the Court privileges the interests of
one class of litigants over others, even unintentionally, it can
damage Americans' faith in an impartial Judiciary and under-
mine the long-term credibility of its judgments.
Time will tell if today's decision portends a broader shift
in the Court's view of Article III standing for all litigants.
If it does not, and if the Court is not fastidious in maintaining
consistency across its certiorari decisions and substantive
rulings, its decisions will come to represent, like so many
marble façades, another mere facsimile of justice.
11
See U. S. Commission on Fine Arts, Cass Gilbert, https://www.cfa. gov/
about-cfa /who-we-are/cass-gilbert (noting that Cass Gilbert, who designed
the Supreme Court building, also designed the Chamber of Commerce's
headquarters in Washington, D. C., and the New York Life building in
Manhattan, among other major commercial offces).
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Reporter’s Note
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant
punctuation. The following additional edits were made:
None