Environmental & Energy
Sep. 18, 2026
Aesthetic injuries, standing and the White House ballroom
The Supreme Court's East Wing ruling casts doubt on decades of precedent recognizing aesthetic injury as sufficient for standing, potentially creating a significant new obstacle to environmental litigation.
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).
Whether President Trump can demolish the East Wing of the White House and build a huge ballroom is likely less important for the long term than the damage the U.S. Supreme Court did for the ability of plaintiffs to have standing to challenge environmental degradation. For over 50 years, the Court has consistently allowed plaintiffs to have standing to sue in federal courts based on claims that they have suffered an aesthetic harm. But in National Park Service v. National T...
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