1973—By a vote of five justices, the Supreme Court rules in United States v. SCRAP that plaintiffs, including a group of law students (“Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures”), have standing to challenge the Interstate Commerce Commission’s decision not to suspend a 2.5% freight rate increase.
What is the alleged injury on which their standing is based? As the majority sums it up, the rate increase “would allegedly cause increased use of nonrecyclable commodities as compared to recyclable goods, thus resulting in the need to use more natural resources to produce such goods, some of which resources might be taken from the Washington area, and resulting in more refuse that might be discarded in national parks in the Washington area,” thus causing the plaintiffs economic, recreational and aesthetic harm. The majority even acknowledges that the case presents “a far more attenuated line of causation to the eventual injury” than in a case the previous year in which the Court found no standing, and it further observes that “all persons who utilize the scenic resources of the country, and indeed all who breathe its air, could claim harm similar to that alleged by the environmental groups here.”
1980—Mere months before losing his bid for re-election, President Jimmy Carter appoints ACLU activist Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the D.C. Circuit. Carter had nominated Ginsburg only two months earlier.