ELR Citation: 50 ELR 20079
No(s). 19-960 (RDM) (D.D.C. Apr 2, 2020) (Moss, J.)

A district court dismissed for lack of standing a lawsuit challenging the Executive Order that requires agencies to repeal two existing rules for each new rule promulgated. California, Minnesota, and Oregon argued that the order delayed or resulted in the undertaking of four rulemakings and that these agency inactions or actions would likely cause them various harms, such as threatening their coastlines with rising tides, fiscal harms resulting from avoidable car crashes, or less federal support for early education. The court found that while the states did not need to show that the agency would have reached a different decision in the absence of the alleged procedural violation, they did need to establish some causal connection between the omitted procedural step and the substantive decision at issue, and they failed to show that the Executive Order caused the relevant agency to act or decline to act. It therefore dismissed the suit for lack of standing.