Hello, this is RJ Deakin, reading the Supreme Court of United States opinion in National Park Service versus National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States on application for stay, august thirty first, twenty twenty six. Percurium opinion. In October 2025, the federal government started a project to replace the East Wing of the White House. The first phase involved the demolition of the existing East Wing, something the government completed in December 2025. The next phase, currently ongoing, involves the construction of a new East Wing, including a below ground military installation and an above ground ballroom. The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court challenging various aspects of the project. As a part of its suit, the trust filed a motion on March 5, 2026, seeking a preliminary injunction. The injunction the trust sought focused not on the already completed demolition of the old East Wing, but on halting the ongoing construction of a new one. On March 31, 2026, the District Court granted the trust's motion and issued a preliminary injunction. As later clarified, the injunction essentially permitted the government to continue work on the new below ground military installation, but enjoined any further construction above ground, except as strictly necessary to protect the White House. The President and his staff oh to protect the White House, the President and his staff. On april seventeenth, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed the District Court's injunction, effectively allowing construction to proceed, while it considered the government's appeal. On August 7, 2026, the Court of Appeals resolved that appeal and upheld the District Court's injunction. At the same time, the court indicated that its existing stay would expire on August 21, 2026, and the District Court's injunction would thus take effect. Confronted with an imminent order requiring it to substantially halt its ongoing construction activities, the government filed a motion in this court seeking a stay of the district court's injunction pending a forthcoming petition for writ of sortiari, and any further proceedings in this court. The Chief Justice issued an administrative stay to facilitate review of the government's application and referred the matter to the court. We grant the requested stay. The government has established that it is likely to succeed on the merits of a significant legal question, that it would likely suffer irreparable harm without a stay, and that the balance of equities tips in its favor. Beginning with the merits, the government is likely to prevail in showing that the trust lacks standing to challenge the East Wing project. To secure standing to sue in federal court, consistent with Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff must establish that it has suffered an injury in fact, that is, the invasion of a legally protected interest. See Luhan versus Defenders of Wildlife. Further, the plaintiff must demonstrate that its injury is a concrete and particularized and actual or imminent. See also transunion LLC versus Ramirez. Injury in fact must be concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent is quotations there. To establish its standing to bring this case, the trust relies on a declaration from a single of single of its members. Hogland says that she lives in Washington, DC and expects to visit the neighborhood around the White House about once a month. She asserts that having to view the finished ballroom the government is constructing would cause her to suffer injuries to her aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests, but she finds the scale, height, and massing of the government's design distasteful. On the strength of that declaration, the Trust contends it has Article III standing to challenge the East Wing project. This court has not found standing in circumstances like these before. To the contrary, we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury under Article III. As we have put it, this court has long made clear that distress at or disagreement with the activities of others is not a basis under Article III for a plaintiff to bring a federal lawsuit. Uh that's FDA versus Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Instead, to secure standing, a plaintiff must identify some concrete and particularized injury, other than the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees. That's Valley Forge Christian College versus Americans United for Separation of Tricks and State. See also Schlesinger versus Reservist Commission to Stop the War. Rejecting the idea that generalized citizen interest is a sufficient basis for standing. United States versus Richardson. Genuine interest alone cannot satisfy the particular concrete injury requirement. And going on. Nor is it clear what would remain of Article III's concrete and particularized injury requirement if we were to extend our case law in the manner the trust now suggests. Perhaps nearly any government action or project offends someone's sensibilities, and adopting the trust's unprecedented and limitless view that offense alone suffices to establish a concrete and particularized injury would seemingly usher in a world where virtually every citizen had standing to challenge virtually every government action that they do not like. An approach to standing that this court has consistently rejected as flatly inconsistent with Article III. That's citing alliance. Absent some considerable revision to our existing standing doctrine, then the government is likely to succeed on the merits. To be sure, and as the trust observes, we have found standing in certain environmental cases where the plaintiff's injuries involved more than mere offense. So for example, in Friends of the Earth Incorporated versus Laidlaw Environmental Services 2000, we found standing where the plaintiffs alleged that harmful pollutants the defendant discharged into a river forced them to abandon fishing, camping, swimming, and picnicking in and near the river, as they had in the past. And in Summers vs. Earth Island Institute from 2009, we noted the government's concession that one member of the plaintiff organization previously had standing to sue for injuries to his recreational interests in a national forest before ultimately denying standing, because a partial settlement left no member with a concrete and imminent injury. None of this, however, helps the trust because none of it unseats this court's long held view that Article III standing is unavailable, whereas here, the only injury a plaintiff asserts stems from offense, disagreement, or distaste. Separately, the trust points to Luhan's statement that the desire to observe an animal species, even for purely aesthetic purposes, can constitute a cognizable interest for purpose of standing. Opposition to application twenty five through twenty six and um but none of this helps the trust either. Proceeding to reject the plaintiff's claim to standing, Luhan stressed that a cognizable interest is a necessary component of standing, but not a sufficient one. Article three requires more than an injury to a cognizable interest. Among other things, a plaintiff must also show that its claimed injury is concrete and particularized. And again, as our precedents have repeatedly held, a plaintiff's distress at or disagreement with a defendant's actions does not clear that bar. Alliance. Finally, the trust replies that even if this rule routinely applies in cases brought by ordinary citizens and taxpayers, it should not apply in this case. It should not, the trust argues, because Hugaland is not just any person, but someone who possesses focused and substantiated expertise in historic architecture. See also opposition to application twenty six. Standing rules, however, contain no such special carvout. Article III standing, we have consistently held, is not measured by the intensity of the litigant's interest, see Valley Forge Christian College. Um or by a litigant's special interest in the subject, see Luhan. The government has also established that it will likely suffer an irreparable harm from the district court's injunction, and that the balance of the equities tips in its favor. Start with this. The District Court likely exceeded its Article III authority to enjoying the activities of a coordinate branch of government. CF Trump versus Casa 2025. And courts may not exceed the bounds of their lawful authority simply because they may think an other branch has exceeded its own. See Luhan at 560, and the ellipses say Article III standing requirements help define those disputes which are appropriately resolved through the judicial process rather than in the political arena. And then internal quotation marks omitted. The government has also presented declarations from the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Director of the United States Secret Service, and the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of the Army, among others, attesting to national security and other harms that would likely arise from enjoining a single coherent project that cannot be readily cleaved into distinct below and above ground pieces. The Secretary of the Army, for example, represents that the height and mass of the planned above ground ballroom are crucial to shield the planned underground military installation from kinetic impacts, and that without such height and mass, engineers would need to dig impracticably deep. Of course, the district court's injunction does not completely preclude above ground construction and might be read to afford the government sufficient leeway to revise its construction plans and install some form of protective cover over the below ground military installation. Um permitting above ground construction strictly necessary for security purposes. See also post at um six uh note six opinion of Chief Justice Roberts. But none of that calls into question the government's declarations attesting that the construction uh that constructing something approximating the height and mass of the intended above ground ballroom is crucial to the security of the below ground military installation, that every day during which construction is delayed impairs the Secret Service's protective operations, that the contemplated ballroom would enhance security for the presidents and their visitors, who in the past have had to meet in soft tents or in off-site when gathering in large numbers, that a prolonged construction period increases the risk of foreign actors gathering intelligence on the project, or that freezing construction would risk significant construction related problems, ranging from concerns about how to secure structural integrity of partially completed superstructure to the possibility of having to delay the installation of infrastructure required to make below ground facilities operational. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, and against these harms, the only harm the trust claims is the offense of one of its members will suffer from having to view a structure of the scale, height, and massing the government intends. These harms and equities are not nearly equippose. Winter versus natural resource defense counsel from 2008, vacating preliminary injunction where the plaintiff's ecological, scientific, and recreational interests were plainly outweighed by the Navy's operational needs. Today, we do not pass on the legality of the government's East Wing project. We conclude only that based on the submissions before us, the government is likely to prevail in showing that the trust lacks Article III standing to challenge the project in federal court, and that the remaining stay factors favor relief. Accordingly, the application for stay presented to the Chief Justice and by him referred to the court is granted. The injunction entered by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in case number 125 CV04316 is stayed, pending the filing and disposition of the government's petition for a writ of sortiari. If such a writ is timely sought, so should sortiari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event sortiari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this court. It is so ordered. Thanks for listening. Um if you want to get a hold of me, it's uh roadscholar80 at gmail.com. That's R O A D S, like the truck drive in roads, the number 8080 at gmail.com. I do see um that we missed one on the 24th. That one looks pretty long. I'll try and um I'll try and get that one um up sometime today. I I don't have a super busy day today.