Limiting Organizational and Associational Standing in SDWA Primacy Challenges

1. Introduction

In Deep South Center for Environmental Justice v. EPA, the Fifth Circuit addressed whether three environmental groups had Article III standing to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to grant Louisiana “primacy” under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for Class VI underground injection control (UIC) wells used in carbon sequestration. The petitioners—Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Healthy Gulf, and the Alliance for Affordable Energy—argued that EPA’s grant of enforcement authority to Louisiana would force them to divert resources to oppose potentially risky carbon‐dioxide wells and exposed their members to speculative harms. The court dismissed the petitions for lack of standing, clarifying the limits on both organizational and associational standing in environmental rule challenges.

2. Summary of the Judgment

EPA approved Louisiana’s application to assume primary enforcement over Class VI UIC wells under the SDWA.
Three environmental organizations challenged the rule in the Fifth Circuit, asserting resource‐diversion injuries and future harms to members.
The court held that none of the groups demonstrated a concrete, particularized, and imminent injury traceable to EPA’s action:

Organizational standing: Merely spending staff time and money to oppose a rule does not create injury in fact (citing Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine).
Associational standing: The proposed chain of events leading to member injury was too speculative and attenuated (citing Clapper v. Amnesty International).

Because the groups failed the injury‐in‐fact and causation requirements, the court dismissed their petitions.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972) – Environmental organizations must show more than “aesthetic” or “abstract” interests.
Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363 (1982) – An organization suffers injury when a defendant’s housing discrimination “perceptibly impair[s]” its counseling services.
Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013) – Speculative chains of events leading to future surveillance fail to satisfy imminence and traceability.
FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024) – An organization cannot manufacture standing by spending resources to oppose an agency action.
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) – An injury must be “actual or imminent,” not “conjectural or hypothetical.”

3.2 Legal Reasoning

Article III standing has three core elements: (1) injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; (2) causation—the injury must be fairly traceable to the challenged conduct; and (3) redressability—a favorable decision is likely to remedy the injury.

Organizational Standing:
- The court applied Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine to hold that diverting staff time and funds to research, comment, and lobby against EPA’s approval does not constitute a cognizable injury. Such voluntary advocacy expenditures cannot “manufacture” standing.
- Even pre-Alliance Fifth Circuit cases uniformly rejected resource diversion alone as injury in fact (e.g., Ass’n for Retarded Citizens of Dallas v. Dallas Cnty. MHMR Bd., 19 F.3d 241 (5th Cir. 1994)).
Associational Standing:
- The groups relied on members’ future injuries—higher utility bills, health and safety risks from CO₂ leaks, aesthetic/recreational harms, and diminished legal recourse due to Louisiana’s post-closure liability transfer.
- Under Clapper, their injury theories depended on a long, hypothetical chain of events: permit applications → state approval → well construction and operation → leak or accident → member exposure → financial or personal harm. Each link was speculative and attenuated, failing the imminence and causation tests.

3.3 Impact

Reinforces the bar against “advocacy” standing—organizations cannot sue simply because they shift resources to oppose government action.
Clarifies that environmental challenges must rest on tangible, traceable harms, not conjectural risks or distant future injuries.
Likely to reduce circuit‐level environmental litigation by weeding out suits lacking concrete injury.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Primacy: A state’s authority, once approved by EPA, to enforce federal UIC regulations instead of the federal government directly.
Class VI wells: Special underground injection wells designed to store supercritical CO₂ deep underground to reduce greenhouse gases.
Supercritical CO₂: A dense fluid state between gas and liquid achieved under high pressure and temperature for sequestration.
Injury in Fact: A real, concrete harm (not hypothetical) to an individual or organization’s own activities.
Causation and Traceability: The harm must be “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s action, not to independent events or third-party choices.
Redressability: A court ruling must be able to alleviate the alleged injury if the plaintiff prevails.

5. Conclusion

Deep South Center for Environmental Justice v. EPA underscores the Supreme Court’s tightening of Article III standing. The Fifth Circuit confirms that:

Organizations cannot create standing by diverting resources to campaign against an agency action.
Associational plaintiffs must identify concrete, imminent injuries to specific members, not rely on speculative chains of events.
EPA’s grant of primacy to Louisiana, though significant in UIC administration, did not directly and immediately harm the petitioners or their members.

This decision will guide future environmental-rule challenges, ensuring federal courts review only those suits underpinned by concrete harms directly linked to the challenged regulatory action.