## Facts

- Private electric utilities operating in Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas sued federal officers administering a Southwest power program involving the Southwestern Power Administration (SPA) and Rural Electrification Administration (REA).
- The utilities alleged that SPA sales arrangements and REA-financed cooperative projects would divert existing and potential customers and interfere with the utilities’ business expansion plans.
- Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to stop federal officials from lending or disbursing funds and from implementing an alleged plan under which SPA would effectively build or control generating and transmission facilities through cooperatives.
- The challenged federal actions did not regulate the utilities, impose duties on them, or alter their legal obligations; the utilities’ asserted injury was exposure to increased competition from government-supported entities.
- The district court denied a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, tried the case, and entered judgment for the federal defendants on the program’s legality.
- On appeal, the court of appeals addressed standing first.

## Issues

1. Whether private utilities alleging only competitive economic injury from SPA/REA contracts and financing are “suffering legal wrong” or are “adversely affected or aggrieved” so as to have standing to sue under APA § 10(a).
2. Whether the Declaratory Judgment Act supplies a basis to obtain declaratory and injunctive relief when plaintiffs lack a legally protected interest invaded by the challenged federal program.

## Decision

- The court of appeals reversed the district court’s refusal to dismiss and directed dismissal of the complaint for lack of standing.
- The court held that plaintiffs’ claimed injury—economic harm from competition—did not constitute a “legal wrong” or statutory “aggrievement” within the meaning of APA § 10(a).
- The court held that the Declaratory Judgment Act is remedial and does not expand standing or create jurisdiction where no legally cognizable injury exists.
- The court did not reach the merits of whether the SPA/REA arrangements were authorized by statute.

## Legal Principles

- Standing under APA § 10(a) requires the invasion of a legally protected right; the APA does not itself create new substantive rights.
- A plaintiff is not “adversely affected or aggrieved” under APA § 10(a) merely because government action causes economic disadvantage; the harm must fall within a relevant statute’s protected interests.
- Competitive injury from lawful competition, without a legally protected entitlement to be free from that competition, is insufficient to confer standing.
- The Declaratory Judgment Act provides a form of relief but does not enlarge the class of plaintiffs who may sue or supply standing absent an underlying legal right.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the utilities’ challenge to the federally supported power program because alleged competitive harm, unaccompanied by invasion of a legally protected right or statutory entitlement, does not satisfy standing requirements under APA § 10(a) and cannot be supplied by the Declaratory Judgment Act.


Kansas City Power & Light Co. v. McKay, 225 F.2d 924 (D.C. Cir. 1955)