## Facts

- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) general permit authorizing certain discharges from oil and gas operations located in, and discharging to, federal waters in the central and western Gulf of Mexico.
- The covered Gulf area was about 600,000 square miles, and the permit applied across that large region rather than to a single project site.
- Center for Biological Diversity, Gulf Restoration Network, and Louisiana Bucket Brigade (the associations) challenged the permit, alleging that issuing the general permit without preparing an environmental impact statement violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and that the permit also violated the Clean Water Act (CWA).
- The associations sought review directly in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit under the CWA’s judicial-review provisions for certain EPA permitting actions.
- Because the associations sued as organizations, they relied on associational standing, which requires, among other things, that at least one member have Article III standing.
- To show member standing, the associations submitted declarations from members including Peter Galvin, Todd Steiner, Susan Prévost, and Jonathan Henderson.
- Galvin, Steiner, and Prévost stated that they planned to visit certain Gulf areas in the future and were concerned that pollution authorized by the permit would affect their recreational, aesthetic, or related interests.
- Henderson stated that he regularly took boat trips in the Gulf to look for oil spills and was concerned about increased pollution.
- The EPA responded that the associations had not shown a concrete, particularized, actual or imminent injury to any identified member that was fairly traceable to the challenged general permit and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.

## Issues

1. Whether the associations established Article III standing (through at least one identified member) to seek judicial review of the EPA’s Gulf of Mexico NPDES general permit.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit held that the associations failed to establish Article III standing.
- The court concluded that the member declarations did not show a concrete and particularized injury that was actual or imminent and tied to the challenged general permit.
- Because no member standing was shown, the associations lacked associational standing, and the court lacked jurisdiction.
- The petition for review was dismissed, and the court did not reach the merits of the NEPA or CWA claims.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts may decide a case only if Article III standing exists: (1) injury in fact that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent; (2) causation (fairly traceable to the challenged action); and (3) redressability (likely remedied by the requested relief).
- An organization asserting associational standing must show: (1) at least one member has standing; (2) the interests at stake are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (3) neither the claim nor the relief requires participation of individual members.
- Generalized concerns about environmental harm, without a specific showing that an identified member will be personally affected in a concrete way, are insufficient for injury in fact.
- Statements of intent to visit a large region “in the future,” without specific plans or a clear connection to the challenged action’s effects on a particular place and time relevant to the member, are typically too speculative to establish imminence and particularization.
- When standing is absent, a court must dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and may not rule on statutory compliance under NEPA or the CWA.

## Conclusion

In *Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA*, the Fifth Circuit dismissed environmental organizations’ petition for review of an EPA NPDES general permit for oil and gas operations in federal Gulf waters because the organizations did not show that any identified member faced a concrete, particularized, actual or imminent injury traceable to the permit and likely to be redressed by the requested relief; lacking member standing, the organizations had no associational standing, so the court did not address the NEPA and CWA merits.


Center for Biological Diversity v. Environmental Protection Agency, 937 F.3d 533 (2019)