The Pendulum Swings Back: Standing Doctrine After

On January 12, 2000, the Supreme Court held in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw that plaintiffs had standing to pursue a Clean Water Act citizen suit, despite the fact that (1) the company-defendant had achieved compliance prior to the district court's decision, (2) plaintiffs sought only civil penalties payable to the U.S. Treasury, and (3) plaintiffs had demonstrated only reasonable concern, not physical injury to the environment. In so holding, the Court appeared to retrench substantially from its environmental standing decisions of the 1990s, which had all gone against plaintiffs. In the wake of Laidlaw, environmental citizen suits will be easier to bring. This report will not be updated