PAST ARTICLES AND EDITORIAL BOARDS The Importance of Standing: The Need to Prioritize Standing Review Under the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
Peter Bucklin
3 J.L & Pol'y 289 (1994)
This Note reviews a series of court decisions relating to the requirments for the satisfaction of threshold inquiries in order for environmental interest groups to obtain judicial review of challenged environmental policies. Since the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA") does not provide for a private right of action, interest group challenges to government agency policies must be funneled by way of the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"). In the cases reviewed, environmental interest groups have been unsuccessful in meeting the resulting merged threshold inquiry; that is, whether members of interest groups can claim injury-in-fact (an Article III standing element) as a consequence of a final agency action (an APA requirement).

The Note reveals that since the Supreme Court's decision in Lujan v. National Wildlife, lower courts have emphasized the 'final agency action' component of the threshold inquiry in denying judicial review, leaving unaddressed the plaintiffs' standing component. The author argues that this has had the consequence of encouraging interest groups to repeatedly return to court in search of an elusive final agency action, when these groups would clearly fail to meet the injury-in-fact standing test. The Note calls for a clearer articulation by the courts of the environmental standing inquiry under NEPA and APA review.