Cite as: 528 U. S. 167 (2000)
Scalia, J., dissenting
vidual plaintiff the power to invoke a public remedy, Congress has done precisely what we have said it cannot do: convert an "undifferentiated public interest" into an "individual right" vindicable in the courts. Lujan, supra, at 577; Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 106. The sort of scattershot redress approved today makes nonsense of our statement in Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 222 (1974), that the requirement of injury in fact "insures the framing of relief no broader than required by the precise facts." A claim of particularized future injury has today been made the vehicle for pursuing generalized penalties for past violations, and a threshold showing of injury in fact has become a lever that will move the world.
B
As I have just discussed, it is my view that a plaintiff's desire to benefit from the deterrent effect of a public penalty for past conduct can never suffice to establish a case or controversy of the sort known to our law. Such deterrent effect is, so to speak, "speculative as a matter of law." Even if that were not so, however, the deterrent effect in the present case would surely be speculative as a matter of fact.
The Court recognizes, of course, that to satisfy Article III, it must be "likely," as opposed to "merely speculative," that a favorable decision will redress plaintiffs' injury, Lujan, supra, at 561. See ante, at 180-181. Further, the Court recognizes that not all deterrent effects of all civil penalties will meet this standard—though it declines to "explore the outer limits" of adequate deterrence, ante, at 187. It concludes, however, that in the present case "the civil penalties sought by FOE carried with them a deterrent effect" that satisfied the "likely [rather than] speculative" standard. Ibid. There is little in the Court's opinion to explain why it believes this is so.
The Court cites the District Court's conclusion that the penalties imposed, along with anticipated fee awards, pro-
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