Supreme Court abortion ruling raises new hurdles for environmental lawsuits

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling arising from a dispute over abortion medication is making it harder for environmental organizations and other advocacy groups to challenge government policies, as federal courts apply stricter standards for establishing legal standing.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston dismissed a lawsuit challenging 25 oil drilling permits in the Central Valley, finding that the environmental groups bringing the case had failed to establish standing.

The plaintiffs, including the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club, alleged that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated federal environmental laws by approving drilling projects that threatened air quality, water supplies and public health.

But Thurston never reached those claims, instead dismissing the complaint with leave to amend. Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 1:25-cv-00140-JLT-CDB (E.D. Cal., filed Feb. 4, 2025).

The environmental groups argued that the agency improperly evaluated drilling applications from Chevron U.S.A. Inc. and Holmes Western Oil Corp. individually rather than considering the cumulative effects of nearby operations. Requiring the agency to reconsider the permits, they maintained, would allow the groups to participate more effectively in the decision-making process.

Thurston found that argument closely resembled one rejected by the Supreme Court in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024).

In that unanimous decision, the justices ruled that anti-abortion organizations seeking to restrict access to mifepristone lacked standing because they had not demonstrated a concrete injury caused by the Food and Drug Administration's actions.

"The advocacy organizations who were the plaintiffs in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine relied on the same types of allegations and the same theory of standing," Thurston wrote. "They contended that the FDA had impaired their 'ability to provide services and achieve their organizational missions.'"

Applying that precedent, Thurston concluded that the environmental groups had not established federal jurisdiction.

Deborah A. Sivas, director of Stanford Law School's Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program, described the ruling as an aggressive application of the Supreme Court's decision.

"I don't think the SCOTUS decision dramatically changed standing jurisprudence; instead, it just emphasized certain aspects that give lower courts, like this one, permission to exercise more scrutiny around the elements of standing," Sivas said in an email.

The decision is part of a broader shift in standing jurisprudence that has complicated lawsuits brought by environmental, civil rights and immigration advocacy organizations. Courts have also invoked Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in challenges involving underground carbon storage in Louisiana and voting policies in Texas.

Thurston cited an August ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that expressly overturned earlier circuit precedent allowing organizations to establish standing based on frustration of their missions and diversion of resources.

In Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans v. Mayes, 2026 DJDAR 6797, an 11-judge en banc panel agreed that an organization's opposition to government action, even when accompanied by expenditures to challenge it, does not necessarily establish a legally cognizable injury.

"When an organization's mission is frustrated just because it has a general objection to the challenged action, the organization has not suffered an injury-in-fact, even when it expends resources to voice that objection," U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony D. Johnstone wrote.

The panel was unanimous in its judgment but divided over its reasoning. Judges Daniel A. Bress and Lawrence VanDyke wrote concurrences arguing that the court should have gone further in applying Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.

Thurston nevertheless identified a possible avenue for the environmental groups to revive their lawsuit.

Although the organizations could not establish standing merely by alleging interference with their advocacy work, they might be able to demonstrate a separate injury based on the government's alleged failure to disclose information required by federal law.

"The complaint in this case, by contrast, might reasonably be characterized as asserting an 'informational injury' violation of a federal statute," Thurston wrote.

She noted allegations that the BLM provided little information about the proposed drilling, failed to release draft environmental assessments and did not give the public adequate notice or an opportunity to comment.

Thurston gave the plaintiffs 30 days to amend their complaint.

Steven D. Schwinn, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, cautioned that informational standing offers a narrower path to federal court and may make it more difficult for the organizations to achieve their ultimate objective of overturning the drilling permits.

"Informational standing is a different kind of thing that's only going to work in particular contexts where organizations have an entitlement to information from the government and the government is not providing it," Schwinn said.

Representatives for Earthjustice, which represents the plaintiffs, said the organization would issue a statement Friday.