598
Blackmun, J., dissenting
relitigation of the extraterritorial scope of the § 7 consultation requirement.4 As a result, I believe respondents' injury would likely be redressed by a favorable decision.
4 The plurality now suggests that collateral-estoppel principles can have no application here, because the participation of other agencies in this litigation arose after its inception. Borrowing a principle from this Court's statutory diversity jurisdiction cases and transferring it to the constitutional standing context, the Court observes: " 'The existence of federal jurisdiction ordinarily depends on the facts as they exist when the complaint is filed.' " Ante, at 569, n. 4 (quoting Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 830 (1989)). See also Mollan v. Torrance, 9 Wheat. 537, 539 (1824) (Marshall, C. J.). The plurality proclaims that "[i]t cannot be" that later participation of other agencies in this suit retroactively created a jurisdictional issue that did not exist at the outset. Ante, at 570, n. 4.
The plurality, however, overlooks at least three difficulties with this explanation. In the first place, assuming that the plurality were correct that events as of the initiation of the lawsuit are the only proper jurisdictional reference point, were the Court to follow this rule in this case there would be no question as to the compliance of other agencies, because, as stated at an earlier point in the opinion: "When the Secretary promulgated the regulation at issue here, he thought it was binding on the agencies." Ante, at 569. This suit was commenced in October 1986, just three months after the regulation took effect. App. 21; 51 Fed. Reg. 19926 (1986). As the plurality further admits, questions about compliance of other agencies with the Secretary's regulation arose only by later participation of the Solicitor General and other agencies in the suit. Ante, at 569. Thus, it was, to borrow the plurality's own words, "assuredly not true when this suit was filed, naming the Secretary alone," ante, at 569, n. 4, that there was any question before the District Court about other agencies being bound.
Second, were the plurality correct that, for purposes of determining redressability, a court may look only to facts as they exist when the complaint is filed, then the Court by implication would render a nullity part of Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 19 provides in part for the joinder of persons if "in the person's absence complete relief cannot be accorded among those already parties." This presupposes nonredressability at the outset of the litigation. Under the plurality's rationale, a district court would have no authority to join indispensable parties, because it would, as an initial matter, have no jurisdiction for lack of the power to provide redress at the outset of the litigation.
Third, the rule articulated in Newman-Green is that the existence of federal jurisdiction "ordinarily" depends on the facts at the initiation of
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