Situating Standing in Environmental Litigation

Controversies over issues of standing in federal civil litigation are hotly contested, as they strike at the heart of separation of powers issues and broader notions of the intent of civil action. Here I identify two competing theories of the purpose of standing and its requirements as such. Restrictive standing, as argued by Professor Ann Woolhandler, seeks to inherently link civil redress with an injury-in-fact requirement for both public and private law claims. Expansive standing, as argued by Professor Cass R. Sunstein, seeks to ground civil redress largely within violations of Congressionally designated causes of action. I argue that the current interpretation by the Supreme Court of standing doctrine largely in accordance with a more restrictive view has left environmental litigation in a particularly dangerous place, as the often collective and diffuse injuries that are the subject of such litigation frequently fail to neatly match the requirements crafted by the Court. In this paper, I will specifically situate the needs of environmental litigation within this discourse over standing doctrine, asserting that the expansive standing position and its dependence upon Congressionally designated causes of action is best able to accommodate the often multifaceted nature of environmental litigation.