Washington Environmental Council v. Bellon

On appeal, defendant-intervenor Western States Petroleum Association argued for the first time that plaintiffs lacked Article III standing, and in a decision issued on October 17, 2013, the Ninth Circuit agreed. The Ninth Circuit held that even assuming that plaintiffs established injury in fact resulting from climate changes, they had not provided evidence sufficient to establish the causality or redressability elements of standing at the summary judgment stage. The court assumed without deciding that “that man-made sources of [greenhouse gasa] emissions are causally linked to global warming and detrimental climate change” but held that plaintiffs’ “vague, conclusory statements” connecting the failure to set RACT standards to their injuries failed to satisfy their evidentiary burden. The Ninth Circuit further noted that establishing “a causal nexus” might be “a particularly challenging task” because “there is limited scientific capability in assessing, detecting, or measuring the relationship between a certain [greenhouse gas] emission source and localized climate impacts in a given region.” The court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the causal link should be inferred because they were seeking to enforce a regulatory obligation; the court noted that plaintiffs could not benefit from the relaxed standing rule for sovereign states carved out by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA. In concluding that plaintiffs had also failed to establishing the redressability element of standing, the Ninth Circuit pointed to the absence of evidence in the record that RACT standards would reduce the pollution causing plaintiffs’ injuries.