OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
NATIONAL CREDIT UNION ADMINISTRATION
v.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK & TRUST CO. ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
No. 96-843. Argued October 6, 1997-Decided February 25,1998*
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) interprets § 109
of the Federal Credit Union Act (FCUA)-which provides that
"[f]ederal credit union membership shall be limited to groups
having a common bond of occupation or association, or to groups
within a well-defined neighborhood, community, or rural district"
-to permit federal credit unions to be composed of multiple,
unrelated employer groups, each having its own distinct common bond
of occupation. After the NCUA approved a series of charter
amendments adding several unrelated employer groups to the
membership of petitioner AT&T Family Federal Credit Union
(ATTF), respondents, five commercial banks and the American Bankers
Association, brought this action under § 10(a) of the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA). They asserted that the NCUA's
decision was contrary to law because § 109 unambiguously requires
that the
same common bond of occupation unite each member of
an occupationally defined federal credit union. The District Court
dismissed the complaint, holding that respondents lacked standing
to challenge the decision because their interests were not within
the "zone of interests" to be protected by § 109. The Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed and
reversed. On remand, the District Court entered summary judgment
against respondents, applying the analysis announced in
Chevron
U. S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense Council,
Inc., 467 U. S.
837, and holding that the NCUA had permissibly interpreted §
109. The Court of Appeals again reversed, concluding that the
District Court had incorrectly applied
Chevron.
Held:
1. Respondents have prudential standing under the APA to seek
federal-court review of the NCUA's interpretation of § 109. Pp.
488-499.
(a) A plaintiff will have prudential standing under § 10(a) of
the APA if the interest the plaintiff seeks to protect is arguably
within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the
statute in question.
*Together with No. 96-847, AT&T Family Federal Credit Union
et al. v. First National Bank & Trust Co. et al., also on
certiorari to the same court.
480
Syllabus
See, e. g., Association of Data Processing Service
Organizations, Inc. v. Camp,
397 U. S. 150, 152-153.
P. 488.
(b) Although this Court's prior cases have not stated a clear
rule for determining when a plaintiff's interest is "arguably
within the zone of interests" to be protected by a statute, four of
them have held that competitors of financial institutions have
prudential standing to challenge agency action relaxing statutory
restrictions on those institutions' activities.
Data Processing,
supra, at 157;
Arnold Tours, Inc. v.
Camp,
400 U. S. 45, 46
(per curiam); Investment Company Institute v.
Camp,
401 U. S. 617,
621
(ICI); Clarke v.
Securities Industry Assn.,
479 U. S. 388,
403. Pp. 488-492.
(c) In applying the "zone of interests" test, the Court does not
ask whether Congress specifically intended the statute at issue to
benefit the plaintiff, see,
e. g., Clarke, supra, at
399-400. Instead, it discerns the interests "arguably ... to be
protected" by the statutory provision and inquires whether the
plaintiff's interests affected by the agency action in question are
among them, see,
e. g., Data Processing, supra, at 153. By
its express terms, § 109 limits membership in every federal credit
union to members of definable "groups." Because federal credit
unions may, as a general matter, offer banking services only to
members, see,
e. g., 12 U. S. C. §§ 1757(5)-(6), §
109 also restricts the markets that every federal credit union can
serve. Although these markets need not be small, they
unquestionably are limited. The link between § 109's regulation of
membership and its limitation on the markets that can be served is
unmistakable. Thus, even if it cannot be said that Congress had the
specific purpose of benefiting commercial banks, one of the
interests "arguably ... to be protected" by § 109 is an interest in
limiting the markets that federal credit unions can serve. This
interest is precisely the interest of respondents affected by the
NCUA's interpretation of § 109. As competitors of federal credit
unions, respondents certainly have an interest in limiting the
markets that federal credit unions can serve, and the NCUA's
interpretation has affected that interest by allowing federal
credit unions to increase their customer base. Section 109 cannot
be distinguished in this regard from the statutory provisions at
issue in
Clarke, ICI, Arnold Tours, and
Data
Processing. Pp. 492-495.
(d) Respondents' interest is therefore arguably within the zone
of interests to be protected by § 109. Petitioners principally
argue that respondents lack standing because there is no evidence
that the Congress that enacted § 109 was concerned with commercial
banks' competitive interests. This argument is misplaced. To accept
that argument, the Court would have to reformulate the "zone of
interests" test to require that Congress have specifically intended
to benefit a particular
481
class of plaintiffs before a plaintiff from that class could
have standing under the APA to sue. Petitioners also mistakenly
rely on
Air Courier Conference v.
Postal Workers,
498 U. S. 517,
519. Unlike the plaintiffs there who were denied standing,
respondents here have "competitive and direct injury,"
id.,
at 528, n. 5, as well as an interest "arguably ... to be protected"
by the statute in question. Under the Court's precedents, it is
irrelevant that in enacting the FCUA, Congress did not specifically
intend to protect commercial banks, as is the fact that
respondents' objectives in this action are not eleemosynary in
nature. Pp.495-499.
2. The NCUA's interpretation of § 109-whereby a common bond of
occupation must unite only the members of each unrelated employer
group-is impermissible under the first step of the analysis set
forth in
Chevron, see 467 U. S., at 842-843, because that
interpretation is contrary to the unambiguously expressed intent of
Congress that the
same common bond of occupation must unite
each member of an occupationally defined federal credit union.
Several considerations compel this conclusion. First, the NCUA's
interpretation makes the statutory phrase "common bond" surplusage
when applied to a federal credit union made up of multiple
unrelated employer groups, because each such "group" already has
its own "common bond," employment with a particular employer. If
the phrase "common bond" is to be given any meaning when the
employees in such groups are joined together, a different "common
bond"-one extending to each and every employee considered
together-must be found to unite them. Second, the interpretation
violates the established canon of construction that similar
language within the same statutory section must be accorded a
consistent meaning. Section 109 consists of two parallel clauses:
Federal credit union membership is limited "to groups having a
common bond of occupation or association, or to groups within a
well-defined neighborhood, community, or rural district." The NCUA
has never interpreted, and does not contend that it could
interpret, the geographic limitation to permit a credit union to be
composed of members from an unlimited number of unrelated
geographic units. The occupational limitation must be interpreted
in the same way. Finally, the NCUA's interpretation has the
potential to read the words "shall be limited" out of the statute
entirely. The interpretation would allow the chartering of a
conglomerate credit union whose members included the employees of
every company in the United States. Section 109 cannot be
considered a
limitation on credit union membership if at the
same time it permits such a
limitless result. Pp.
499-503.
90 F.3d
525, affirmed.
482
THOMAS, J., delivered an opinion, which was for the Court except
as to footnote 6. REHNQUIST, C. J., and KENNEDY and GINSBURG, JJ.,
joined that opinion in full, and SCALIA, J., joined except as to
footnote 6. O'CONNOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which
STEVENS, SOUTER, and BREYER, JJ., joined,
post, p. 503.
Solicitor General Waxman argued the cause for the federal
petitioner. With him on the briefs were Acting Solicitor General
Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General Hunger, David C. Frederick,
Douglas N. Letter, Jacob M. Lewis, Michael E. Robinson, and John K.
Ianno. John G. Roberts,
Jr., argued the cause for petitioner
AT&T Family Federal Credit Union et al. With him on the briefs
were Paul
J. Lambert, Jonathan S. Franklin, and Brenda S.
Furlow.
Michael S.
Helfer argued the cause for
respondents.
With him on the briefs were Louis R. Cohen, Christopher R.
Lipsett, John J. Gill III, and Michael F. Crotty.t
JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to
footnote 6. *
Section 109 of the Federal Credit Union Act (FCUA), 48 Stat.
1219, 12 U. S. C. § 1759, provides that "[f]ederal credit union
membership shall be limited to groups having a common bond of
occupation or association, or to groups within
tBriefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the Ad Hoc Small Employers Group et al. by
Paul G.
Gaston, Richard J. Dines, and
Christiane
Gigi Hyland; for the California Credit Union League by
Thomas H. GU, Craig A. Horowitz, Wayne D. Clayton, and
Joseph A. McDonald; for the Consumer Federation of America,
Inc., et al. by
Joseph C.
Zengerle; for the National
Association of Federal Credit Unions by
John F.
Cooney,
Ronald R. Glancz, Melissa Landau Steinman, William J.
Donovan, and
Fred M. Haden; and for the National
Association of State Credit Union Supervisors by
Stanley M.
Gorinson, John Longstreth, and C.
Stephen Trimmier.
Leonard J. Rubin filed a brief for the
Independent Bankers Association of America et al. as
amici
curiae urging affirmance.
*JUSTICE SCALIA joins this opinion, except as to footnote 6.
483
a well-defined neighborhood, community, or rural district."
Since 1982, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the
agency charged with administering the FCUA, has interpreted § 109
to permit federal credit unions to be composed of multiple
unrelated employer groups, each having its own common bond of
occupation. In this action, respondents, five banks and the
American Bankers Association, have challenged this interpretation
on the ground that § 109 unambiguously requires that the
same common bond of occupation unite every member of an
occupationally defined federal credit union. We granted certiorari
to answer two questions. First, do respondents have standing under
the Administrative Procedure Act to seek federal-court review of
the NCUA's interpretation? Second, under the analysis set forth in
Chevron U. S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), is
the NCUA's interpretation permissible? We answer the first question
in the affirmative and the second question in the negative. We
therefore affirm.
I A
In 1934, during the Great Depression, Congress enacted the FCU
A, which authorizes the chartering of credit unions at the national
level and provides that federal credit unions may, as a general
matter, offer banking services only to their members. Section 109
of the FCUA, which has remained virtually unaltered since the FCU
A's enactment, expressly restricts membership in federal credit
unions. In relevant part, it provides:
"Federal credit union membership shall consist of the
incorporators and such other persons and incorporated and
unincorporated organizations, to the extent permitted by rules and
regulations prescribed by the Board, as may be elected to
membership and as such shall each, subscribe to at least one share
of its stock and pay the
484
initial installment thereon and a uniform entrance fee if
required by the board of directors; except that Federal credit
union membership shall be limited to groups having a common bond of
occupation or association, or to groups within a well-defined
neighborhood, community, or rural district." 12 U. S. C. § 1759
(emphasis added).
Until 1982, the NCUA and its predecessors consistently
interpreted § 109 to require that the
same common bond of
occupation unite every member of an occupationally defined federal
credit union. In 1982, however, the NCUA reversed its longstanding
policy in order to permit credit unions to be composed of multiple
unrelated employer groups. See IRPS 82-1,47 Fed. Reg. 16775 (1982).
It thus interpreted § 109's common bond requirement to apply only
to each employer group in a multiple-group credit union, rather
than to every member of that credit union. See IRPS 82-3, 47 Fed.
Reg. 26808 (1982). Under the NCUA's new interpretation, all of the
employer groups in a multiple-group credit union had to be located
"within a well-defined area,"
ibid., but the NCUA later
revised this requirement to provide that each employer group could
be located within "an area surrounding the [credit union's] home or
a branch office that can be reasonably served by the [credit union]
as determined by NCUA." IRPS 89-1, 54 Fed. Reg. 31170 (1989). Since
1982, therefore, the NCUA has permitted federal credit unions to be
composed of wholly unrelated employer groups, each having its own
distinct common bond.
B
After the NCUA revised its interpretation of § 109, petitioner
AT&T Family Federal Credit Union (ATTF) expanded its operations
considerably by adding unrelated employer groups to its membership.
As a result, ATTF now has approximately 110,000 members nationwide,
only 35% of
485
whom are employees of AT&T and its affiliates. See Brief for
Petitioner NCUA 9. The remaining members are employees of such
diverse companies as the Lee Apparel Company, the Coca-Cola
Bottling Company, the Ciba-Geigy Corporation, the Duke Power
Company, and the American Tobacco Company. See App. 54-79.
In 1990, after the NCUA approved a series of amendments to
ATTF's charter that added several such unrelated employer groups to
ATTF's membership, respondents brought this action. Invoking the
judicial review provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act
(APA), 5 U. S. C. § 702, respondents claimed that the NCUA's
approval of the charter amendments was contrary to law because the
members of the new groups did not share a common bond of occupation
with ATTF's existing members, as respondents alleged § 109
required. ATTF and petitioner Credit Union National Association
were permitted to intervene in the action as defendants.
The District Court dismissed the complaint. It held that
respondents lacked prudential standing to challenge the NCUA's
chartering decision because their interests were not within the
"zone of interests" to be protected by § 109, as required by this
Court's cases interpreting the AP A.
First Nat. Bank &
Trust Co. v.
National Credit Union Admin., 772 F.
Supp. 609 (DC 1991). The District Court rejected as irrelevant
respondents' claims that the NCUA's interpretation had caused them
competitive injury, stating that the legislative history of the
FCUA demonstrated that it was passed "to establish a place for
credit unions within the country's financial market, and
specifically not to protect the competitive interest of banks."
Id., at 612. The District Court also determined that
respondents were not "suitable challengers" to the NCUA's
interpretation, as that term had been used in prior prudential
standing cases from the Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit.
Ibid.
486
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
reversed.
First Nat. Bank &
Trust Co. v.
National Credit Union Admin., 988 F.2d
1272, cert. denied, 510 U. S. 907 (1993). The Court of Appeals
agreed that "Congress did not, in 1934, intend to shield banks from
competition from credit unions," 988 F. 2d, at 1275, and hence
respondents could not be said to be "intended beneficiaries" of §
109. Relying on two of our prudential standing cases involving the
financial services industry,
Investment Company Institute v.
Camp, 401 U.
S. 617 (1971), and
Clarke v.
Securities Industry
Assn., 479 U. S.
388 (1987), the Court of Appeals nonetheless concluded that
respondents' interests were sufficiently congruent with the
interests of § 109's intended beneficiaries that respondents were
"suitable challengers" to the NCVA's chartering decision;
therefore, their suit could proceed. See 988 F. 2d, at
1276-1278.1
On remand, the District Court applied the two-step analysis that
we announced in
Chevron U. S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural
Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), and
held that the
NCVA had permissibly interpreted § 109. 863 F.
Supp. 9 (DC 1994). It first asked whether, in enacting § 109,
Congress had spoken directly to the precise question at
issue-whether the same common bond of occupation must unite members
of a federal credit union composed of multiple employer groups. See
id., at 12. It determined that because § 109 could plausibly
be understood to permit an occupationally defined federal credit
union to consist of several employer "groups," each having its own
distinct common bond of occupation, Congress had not unambiguously
addressed this question. See
ibid. The District Court
then
1 The Court of Appeals' holding that respondents had prudential
standing conflicted with a decision of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reached prior to this Court's
decision in
Clarke v.
Securities Industry Assn.,
479 U. S. 388
(1987). See
Branch Bank &
Trust Co. v.
National Credit Union Administration Bd., 786 F.2d
621 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1063 (1987).
487
stated that it was unnecessary to decide, under the second step
of
Chevron, whether the NCVA's interpretation was
reasonable, because respondents had not "seriously argued" that the
interpretation was unreasonable. See 863 F. Supp., at 13-14.
Accordingly, the District Court entered summary judgment against
respondents. See
ibid.
The Court of Appeals again reversed.
90 F.3d
525 (CADC 1996). It held that the District Court had
incorrectly applied the first step of
Chevron: Congress had
indeed spoken directly to the precise question at issue and had
unambiguously indicated that the same common bond of occupation
must unite members of a federal credit union composed of multiple
employer groups. See 90 F. 3d, at 527. The Court of Appeals
reasoned that because the concept of a "common bond" is implicit in
the term "group," the term "common bond" would be surplusage if it
applied only to the members of each constituent "group" in a
multiple-group federal credit union. See
id., at 528. It
further noted that the
NCVA had not interpreted § 109's
geographical limitation to allow federal credit unions to comprise
groups from multiple unrelated "neighborhood[s], communit[ies], or
rural district[s]" and stated that the occupational limitation
should not be interpreted differently. See
id., at 528-529.
The NCVA's revised interpretation of § 109 was therefore
impermissible.2 See
id., at 529. Because of the importance
of the issues presented,3 we granted certiorari. 519 U. S. 1148
(1997).
2 A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit later
reached a similar conclusion, with one judge dissenting. See
First City Bank v.
National Credit Union Administration
Bd., 111 F.3d
433 (1997).
3 According to the NCUA, since 1982, thousands of federal credit
unions have relied on the NCUA's revised interpretation of § 109.
See Pet. for Cert. in No. 96-843, p. 14. Moreover, following the
Court of Appeals' decision on the merits, the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia granted a nationwide
injunction prohibiting the NCUA from approving the addition of
unrelated employer groups to
any federal credit union. See
Brief for Petitioner ATTF 14, n. 5.
488
II
Respondents claim a right to judicial review of the NCVA's
chartering decision under § 10(a) of the APA, which provides:
"A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or
adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning
of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof." 5
U. S. C. § 702.
We have interpreted § 10(a) of the APA to impose a prudential
standing requirement in addition to the requirement, imposed by
Article III of the Constitution, that a plaintiff have suffered a
sufficient injury in fact. See,
e. g., Association of Data
Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v.
Camp, 397 U.
S. 150, 152 (1970)
(Data Processing).4 For a plaintiff to
have prudential standing under the AP A, "the interest sought to be
protected by the complainant [must be] arguably within the zone of
interests to be protected or regulated by the statute ... in
question."
Id., at 153.
Based on four of our prior cases finding that competitors of
financial institutions have standing to challenge agency action
relaxing statutory restrictions on the activities of those
institutions, we hold that respondents' interest in limiting the
markets that federal credit unions can serve is arguably within the
zone of interests to be protected by § 109. Therefore, respondents
have prudential standing under the APA to challenge the NCVA's
interpretation.
A
Although our prior cases have not stated a clear rule for
determining when a plaintiff's interest is "arguably within the
zone of interests" to be protected by a statute, they none-
4 In this action, it is not disputed that respondents have
suffered an injury in fact because the NCUA's interpretation allows
persons who might otherwise be their customers to be members, and
therefore customers, of ATTF.
489
theless establish that we should not inquire whether there has
been a congressional intent to benefit the would-be plaintiff. In
Data Processing, supra, the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency (Comptroller) had interpreted the National Bank Act's
incidental powers clause, Rev. Stat. § 5136, 12 U. S. C. § 24
Seventh, to permit national banks to perform data processing
services for other banks and bank customers. See
Data
Processing, supra, at 151. The plaintiffs, a data processing
corporation and its trade association, alleged that this
interpretation was impermissible because providing data processing
services was not, as was required by the statute, "[an] incidental
powe[r] ... necessary to carry on the business of banking." See 397
U. S., at 157, n. 2.
In holding that the plaintiffs had standing, we stated that §
10(a) of the APA required only that "the interest sought to be
protected by the complainant [be] arguably within the zone of
interests to be protected or regulated by the statute ... in
question."
Id., at 153. In determining that the plaintiffs'
interest met this requirement, we noted that although the relevant
federal statutes-the National Bank Act, 12 U. S. C. § 24 Seventh,
and the Bank Service Corporation Act, 76 Stat. 1132, 12 U. S. C. §
1864-did not "in terms protect a specified groupe,] ... their
general policy is apparent; and those whose interests are directly
affected by a broad or narrow interpretation of the Acts are easily
identifiable."
Data Processing, 397 U. S., at 157. "[A]s
competitors of national banks which are engaging in data processing
services," the plaintiffs were within that class of "aggrieved
persons" entitled to judicial review of the Comptroller's
interpretation.
Ibid.
Less than a year later, we applied the "zone of interests" test
in
Arnold Tours, Inc. v.
Camp, 400 U. S. 45 (1970)
(per curiam) (Arnold Tours). There, certain travel agencies
challenged a ruling by the Comptroller, similar to the one
contested in
Data Processing, that permitted national banks
to operate travel agencies. See 400 U. S., at 45. In holding
490
that the plaintiffs had prudential standing under the AP A, we
noted that it was incorrect to view our decision in
Data
Processing as resting on the peculiar legislative history of §
4 of the Bank Service Corporation Act, which had been passed in
part at the behest of the data processing industry. See 400 U. S.,
at 46. We stated explicitly that "we did not rely on any
legislative history showing that Congress desired to protect data
processors alone from competition."
Ibid. We further
explained:
"In Data Processing ... [w]e held that § 4 arguably
brings a competitor within the zone of interests protected by it.
Nothing in the opinion limited § 4 to protecting only competitors
in the data-processing field. When national banks begin to provide
travel services for their customers, they compete with travel
agents no less than they compete with data processors when they
provide data-processing services to their customers." Ibid.
(internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
A year later, we decided
Investment Company Institute v.
Camp, 401 U.
S. 617 (1971)
(ICI). In that case, an investment company
trade association and several individual investment companies
alleged that the Comptroller had violated,
inter alia, § 21
of the Glass-Steagall Act, 1932,5 by permitting national banks to
establish and operate what in essence were early versions of mutual
funds. We held that the plaintiffs, who alleged that they would be
injured by the competition resulting from the Comptroller's action,
had standing under the AP A and stated that the case was controlled
by
Data Processing. See 401 U. S., at 621.
5 Under § 21 of the Glass-Steagall Act, it is unlawful "[f]or
any person, firm, [or] corporation ... engaged in the business of
issuing ... securities, to engage at the same time to any extent
whatever in the business of receiving deposits." § 21 of the
Banking Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 189, 12 U. S. C. § 378(a).
491
Significantly, we found unpersuasive Justice Harlan's argument
in dissent that the suit should be dismissed because "neither the
language of the pertinent provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act nor
the legislative history evince[d] any congressional concern for the
interests of petitioners and others like them in freedom from
competition."
Id., at 640.
Our fourth case in this vein was
Clarke v.
Securities
Industry Assn., 479 U. S. 388 (1987)
(Clarke). There, a securities dealers trade association sued
the Comptroller, this time for authorizing two national banks to
offer discount brokerage services both at their branch offices and
at other locations inside and outside their home States. See
id., at 391. The plaintiff contended that the Comptroller's
action violated the McFadden Act, which permits national banks to
carry on the business of banking only at authorized branches, and
to open new branches only in their home States and only to the
extent that state-chartered banks in that State can do so under
state law. See
id., at 391-392.
We again held that the plaintiff had standing under the AP A.
Summarizing our prior holdings, we stated that although the "zone
of interests" test "denies a right of review if the plaintiff's
interests are ... marginally related to or inconsistent with the
purposes implicit in the statute,"
id., at 399, "there need
be no indication of congressional purpose to benefit the would-be
plaintiff,"
id., at 399-400 (citing
ICI). We then
determined that by limiting the ability of national banks to do
business outside their home States, "Congress ha[d] shown a concern
to keep national banks from gaining a monopoly control over credit
and money." 479 U. S., at 403. The interest of the securities
dealers in preventing national banks from expanding into the
securities markets directly implicated this concern because
offering discount brokerage services would allow national banks
"access to more money, in the form of credit balances, and enhanced
opportunities to lend money, viz., for margin purchases."
Ibid. The case was thus analogous to
Data Processing
and
ICI: "In those
492
cases the question was what activities banks could engage in at
all; here, the question is what activities banks can engage in
without regard to the limitations imposed by state branching law."
479 U. S., at 403.
B
Our prior cases, therefore, have consistently held that for a
plaintiff's interests to be arguably within the "zone of interests"
to be protected by a statute, there does not have to be an
"indication of congressional purpose to benefit the would-be
plaintiff."
Id., at 399-400 (citing
leI); see also
Arnold Tours, 400 U. S., at 46 (citing
Data
Processing). The proper inquiry is simply "whether the interest
sought to be protected by the complainant is
arguably within
the zone of interests to be protected ... by the statute."
Data
Processing, 397 U. S., at 153 (emphasis added). Hence in
applying the "zone of interests" test, we do not ask whether, in
enacting the statutory provision at issue, Congress specifically
intended to benefit the plaintiff. Instead, we first discern the
interests "arguably ... to be protected" by the statutory provision
at issue; we then inquire whether the plaintiff's interests
affected by the agency action in question are among them.
Section 109 provides that "[f]ederal credit union membership
shall be limited to groups having a common bond of occupation or
association, or to groups within a well-defined neighborhood,
community, or rural district." 12 U. S. C. § 1759. By its express
terms, § 109 limits membership in every federal credit union to
members of definable "groups." Because federal credit unions may,
as a general matter, offer banking services only to members, see,
e. g., 12 U. S. C. §§ 1757(5)-(6), § 109 also
restricts the markets that every federal credit union can serve.
Although these markets need not be small, they unquestionably are
limited. The link between § 109's regulation of federal credit
union membership and its limitation on the markets that federal
credit unions can serve is unmistakable. Thus, even if it cannot be
said
493
that Congress had the specific purpose of benefiting commercial
banks, one of the interests "arguably ... to be protected" by § 109
is an interest in limiting the markets that federal credit unions
can serve.6 This interest is precisely the interest of respondents
affected by the NCVA's interpretation of § 109. As competitors of
federal credit unions, respondents certainly have an interest in
limiting the markets that federal credit unions can serve, and the
NCVA's interpretation
6 The legislative history of § 109, upon which petitioners so
heavily rely, supports this conclusion. Credit unions originated in
mid-19th-century Europe as cooperative associations that were
intended to provide credit to persons of small means; they were
usually organized around some common theme, either geographic or
associational. See General Accounting Office, Credit Unions:
Reforms for Ensuring Future Soundness 24 (July 1991). Following the
European example, in the 1920's many States passed statutes
authorizing the chartering of credit unions, and a number of those
statutes contained provisions similar to § 109's common bond
requirement. See A. Burger & T. Dacin, Field of Membership: An
Evolving Concept 6 (2d ed. 1992).
During the Great Depression, in contrast to widespread bank
failures at both the state and national level, there were no
involuntary liquidations of state-chartered credit unions. See S.
Rep. No. 555, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1934). The cooperative nature
of the institutions, which state-law common bond provisions
reinforced, was believed to have contributed to this result. See
Credit Unions: Hearing before a Subcommittee of the Senate
Committee on Banking and Currency, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 19-20, 26
(1933). A common bond provision was thus included in the District
of Columbia Credit Union Act, which Congress passed in 1932; it was
identical to the FCUA's common bond provision enacted two years
later. When Congress enacted the FCUA, sponsors of the legislation
emphasized that the cooperative nature of credit unions allowed
them to make credit available to persons who otherwise would not
qualify for loans. See S. Rep. No. 555,
supra, at 1,3.
The legislative history thus confirms that § 109 was thought to
reinforce the cooperative nature of credit unions, which in turn
was believed to promote their safety and soundness and allow access
to credit to persons otherwise unable to borrow. Because, by its
very nature, a cooperative institution must serve a limited market,
the legislative history of § 109 demonstrates that one of the
interests "arguably ... to be protected" by § 109 is an interest in
limiting the markets that federal credit unions can serve.
494
has affected that interest by allowing federal credit unions to
increase their customer base.7
Section 109 cannot be distinguished from the statutory
provisions at issue in
Clarke, ICI, Arnold Tours, and
Data Processing. Although in
Clarke the McFadden Act
appeared to be designed to protect only the interest of state banks
in parity of treatment with national banks, we nonetheless
determined that the statute also limited "the extent to which
[national] banks [could] engage in the discount brokerage business
and hence limit[ed] the competitive impact on nonbank discount
brokerage houses."
Clarke, 479 U. S., at 403. Accordingly,
although Congress did not intend specifically to protect securities
dealers, one of the interests "arguably ... to be protected" by the
statute was an interest in restricting national bank market power.
The plaintiff securities dealers, as competitors of national banks,
had that interest, and that interest had been affected by the
inter-
7 Contrary to the dissent's contentions, see
post, at
503, 509, our formulation does not "eviscerat[e]" or "abolis[h]"
the zone of interests requirement. Nor can it be read to imply
that, in order to have standing under the APA, a plaintiff must
merely have an interest in enforcing the statute in question. The
test we have articulated-discerning the interests "arguably ... to
be protected" by the statutory provision at issue and inquiring
whether the plaintiff's interests affected by the agency action in
question are among them-differs only as a matter of semantics from
the formulation that the dissent has accused us of "eviscerating"
or "abolishing," see
post, at 504 (stating that the
plaintiff must establish that "the injury he complains of ... falls
within the zone of interests sought to be protected by the
statutory provision whose violation forms the legal basis for his
complaint" (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).
Our only disagreement with the dissent lies in the application
of the "zone of interests" test. Because of the unmistakable link
between § 109's express restriction on credit union membership and
the limitation on the markets that federal credit unions can serve,
there is objectively "some indication in the statute,"
post,
at 517 (emphasis deleted), that respondents' interest is "arguably
within the zone of interests to be protected" by § 109. Hence
respondents are more than merely incidental beneficiaries of §
109's effects on competition.
495
pretation of the McFadden Act they sought to challenge, because
that interpretation had allowed national banks to expand their
activities and serve new customers. See
ibid.
Similarly, in
ICI, even though in enacting the
GlassSteagall Act, Congress did not intend specifically to benefit
investment companies and may have sought only to protect national
banks and their depositors, one of the interests "arguably ... to
be protected" by the statute was an interest in restricting the
ability of national banks to enter the securities business. The
investment company plaintiffs, as competitors of national banks,
had that interest, and that interest had been affected by the
Comptroller's interpretation allowing national banks to establish
mutual funds.
So too, in
Arnold Tours and
Data Processing,
although in enacting the National Bank Act and the Bank Service
Corporation Act, Congress did not intend specifically to benefit
travel agents and data processors and may have been concerned only
with the safety and soundness of national banks, one of the
interests "arguably ... to be protected" by the statutes was an
interest in preventing national banks from entering other
businesses' product markets. As competitors of national banks,
travel agents and data processors had that interest, and that
interest had been affected by the Comptroller's interpretations
opening their markets to national banks. See also
NationsBank
of N. c., N.
A. v.
Variable Annuity Life Ins.
Co., 513 U. S.
251 (1995) (deciding that the Comptroller had permissibly
interpreted 12 U. S. C. § 24 Seventh to allow national banks to act
as agents in the sale of annuities; insurance agents' standing to
challenge the interpretation not questioned).
C
Petitioners attempt to distinguish this action principally on
the ground that there is no evidence that Congress, when
496
it enacted the FCUA, was at all concerned with the competitive
interests of commercial banks, or indeed at all concerned with
competition. See Brief for Petitioner ATTF 21-22. Indeed,
petitioners contend that the very reason Congress passed the FCUA
was that "[b]anks were simply not in the picture" as far as small
borrowers were concerned, and thus Congress believed it necessary
to create a new source of credit for people of modest means. See
id., at 25.
The difficulty with this argument is that similar arguments were
made unsuccessfully in each of
Data Processing, Arnold Tours,
ICI, and
Clarke. In
Data Processing, the
Comptroller argued against standing for the following reasons:
"[P]etitioners do not contend that Section 24 Seventh had any
purpose ... to protect the interest of potential competitors of
national banks. The reason is clear: the legislative history of the
Section dispels all possible doubt that its enactment in 1864 (13
Stat. 101) was for the express and sole purpose of creating a
strong national banking system .... To the extent that the
protection of a competitive interest was at the bottom of the
enactment of Section 24 Seventh, it was the interest of national
banks and not of their competitors." Brief for Comptroller of the
Currency in Association of Data Processing Service
Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, O. T. 1969, No. 85, pp.
19-20.
Similarly, in
Arnold Tours, the Comptroller contended
that the position of the travel agents was "markedly different from
that of the data processors," who could find in the legislative
history "some manifestation of legislative concern for their
competitive position." Memorandum for Comptroller of the Currency
in Opposition in
Arnold Tours, Inc. v.
Camp, O. T.
1970, No. 602, pp. 3-4. And in
ICI, the Comptroller again
urged us not to find standing, because-
497
"[t]he thrust of the legislation, and the concern of the
drafters, was to protect the banking public through the maintenance
of a sound national banking system ....
"There was no Congressional objective to protect mutual funds or
their investment advisers or underwriters." Brief for Comptroller
of Currency in Investment Company Institute v. Camp,
O. T. 1970, No. 61, pp. 27-29 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
"Indeed, the Congressional attitude toward the investment
bankers can only be characterized as one of distaste. For example,
in discussing the private investment bankers, Senator Glass pointed
out that many of them had 'unloaded millions of dollars of
worthless investment securities upon the banks of this country.'"
Id., at 30, n. 22 (citation omitted).
Finally, in
Clarke, the Comptroller contended that
"[t]here is no doubt that Congress had only one type of competitive
injury in mind when it passed the [McFadden] Act-the type that
national and state banks might inflict upon each other." Brief for
Federal Petitioner in
Clarke v.
Securities Industry
Assn., O. T. 1985, No. 85-971, p. 24.
In each case, we declined to accept the Comptroller's argument.
In
Data Processing, we considered it irrelevant that the
statutes in question "d[id] not in terms protect a specified
group," because "their general policy [was] apparent[,] and those
whose interests [were] directly affected by a broad or narrow
interpretation of [the statutes] [were] easily identifiable." 397
U. S., at 157. In
Arnold Tours, we similarly believed it
irrelevant that Congress had shown no concern for the competitive
position of travel agents in enacting the statutes in question. See
400 U. S., at 46. In
ICI, we were unmoved by Justice
Harlan's comment in dissent that the Glass-Steagall Act was passed
in spite of its positive effects on the competitive position
of investment banks. See 401 U. S., at 640. And in
Clarke,
we did not debate whether
498
the Congress that enacted the McFadden Act was concerned about
the competitive position of securities dealers. See 479 U. S., at
403. The provisions at issue in each of these cases, moreover,
could be said merely to be safety-and-soundness provisions, enacted
only to protect national banks and their depositors and without a
concern for competitive effects. We nonetheless did not hesitate to
find standing.
We therefore cannot accept petitioners' argument that
respondents do not have standing because there is no evidence that
the Congress that enacted § 109 was concerned with the competitive
interests of commercial banks. To accept that argument, we would
have to reformulate the "zone of interests" test to require that
Congress have specifically intended to benefit a particular class
of plaintiffs before a plaintiff from that class could have
standing under the APA to sue. We have refused to do this in our
prior cases, and we refuse to do so today.
Petitioners also mistakenly rely on our decision in
Air
Courier Conference v.
Postal Workers, 498 U. S. 517 (1991). In
Air Courier, we held that the interest of Postal Service
employees in maximizing employment opportunities was not within the
"zone of interests" to be protected by the postal monopoly
statutes, and hence those employees did not have standing under the
AP A to challenge a Postal Service regulation suspending its
monopoly over certain international operations. See
id., at
519. We stated that the purposes of the statute were solely to
increase the revenues of the Post Office and to ensure that postal
services were provided in a manner consistent with the public
interest, see
id., at 526527. Only those interests,
therefore, and not the interests of Postal Service employees in
their employment, were "arguably within the zone of interests to be
protected" by the statute. Cf.
Lujan v.
National Wildlife
Federation, 497
U. S. 871, 883 (1990) (stating that an agency reporting company
would not have prudential standing to challenge the agency's
failure to comply with a statutory mandate to con-
499
duct hearings on the record). We further noted that although the
statute in question regulated competition, the interests of the
plaintiff employees had nothing to do with competition. See
Air
Courier, supra, at 528, n. 5 (stating that "[e]mployees have
generally been denied standing to enforce competition laws because
they lack competitive and direct injury"). In this action, not only
do respondents have "competitive and direct injury," but, as the
foregoing discussion makes clear, they possess an interest that is
"arguably ... to be protected" by § 109.
Respondents' interest in limiting the markets that credit unions
can serve is "arguably within the zone of interests to be
protected" by § 109. Under our precedents, it is irrelevant that in
enacting the FCUA, Congress did not specifically intend to protect
commercial banks. Although it is clear that respondents' objectives
in this action are not eleemosynary in nature,S under our prior
cases that, too, is beside the point.9
III
Turning to the merits, we must judge the permissibility of the
NCUA's current interpretation of § 109 by employing the analysis
set forth in
Chevron U. S.
A. Inc. v.
Natural
Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984).
Under that analysis, we first ask whether Congress has "directly
spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress
is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as
the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously
8The data processing companies, travel agents, investment
companies, and securities dealers that challenged the Comptroller's
rulings in our prior cases certainly did not bring suit to advance
the noble goal of maintaining the safety and soundness of national
banks, or to promote the interests of national bank depositors.
9Unlike some of our prudential standing cases, no suggestion is
made in this action that Congress has sought to preclude judicial
review of agency action. See,
e. g., Block v.
Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S. 340 (1984).
500
expressed intent of Congress."
Id., at 842-843. If we
determine that Congress has not directly spoken to the precise
question at issue, we then inquire whether the agency's
interpretation is reasonable. See
id., at 843-844. Because
we conclude that Congress has made it clear that the
same
common bond of occupation must unite each member of an
occupationally defined federal credit union, we hold that the
NCUA's contrary interpretation is impermissible under the first
step of
Chevron.
As noted, § 109 requires that "[f]ederal credit union membership
shall be limited to groups having a common bond of occupation or
association, or to groups within a well-defined neighborhood,
community, or rural district." Respondents contend that because §
109 uses the article "a"-"i.
e., one"in conjunction with the
noun "common bond," the "natural reading" of § 109 is that all
members in an occupationally defined federal credit union must be
united by one common bond. See Brief for Respondents 33.
Petitioners reply that because § 109 uses the plural noun "groups,"
it permits multiple groups, each with its own common bond, to
constitute a federal credit union. See Brief for Petitioner NCUA
29-30.
Like the Court of Appeals, we do not think that either of these
contentions, standing alone, is conclusive. The article "a" could
be thought to convey merely that one bond must unite only the
members of each group in a multiple-group credit union, and not all
of the members in the credit union taken together. See 90 F. 3d, at
528. Similarly, the plural word "groups" could be thought to refer
not merely to multiple groups in a particular credit union, but
rather to every single "group" that forms a distinct credit union
under the FCUA. See
ibid. Nonetheless, as the Court of
Appeals correctly recognized, additional considerations compel the
conclusion that the same common bond of occupation must unite all
of the members of an occupationally defined federal credit
union.
501
First, the NCVA's current interpretation makes the phrase
"common bond" surplusage when applied to a federal credit union
made up of multiple unrelated employer groups, because each "group"
in such a credit union already has its own "common bond." See
ibid. To use the facts of this action, the employees of
AT&T and the employees of the American Tobacco Company each
already had a "common bond" before being joined together as members
of ATTF. The former were bonded because they worked for AT&T,
and the latter were bonded because they worked for the American
Tobacco Company. If the phrase "common bond" is to be given any
meaning when these employees are joined together, a different
"common bond"-one extending to each and every employee considered
together-must be found to unite them. Such a "common bond" exists
when employees of different subsidiaries of the same company are
joined together in a federal credit union; it does not exist,
however, when employees of unrelated companies are so joined. See
ibid. Put another way, in the multiple employer group
context, the
NCVA has read the statute as though it merely
stated that "[f]ederal credit union membership shall be limited to
occupational groups," but that is simply not what the statute
provides.
Second, the NCVA's interpretation violates the established canon
of construction that similar language contained within the same
section of a statute must be accorded a consistent meaning. See
Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue v.
William Wrigley, Jr.,
Co., 505 U. S.
214, 225 (1992). Section 109 consists of two parallel clauses:
Federal credit union membership is limited "to groups having a
common bond of occupation or association,
or to groups
within a well-defined neighborhood, community, or rural district."
12 U. S. C. § 1759 (emphasis added). The
NCVA concedes that
even though the second limitation permits geographically defined
credit unions to have as members more than one "group," all of the
groups must come from the
same "neighborhood,
502
community, or rural district." See Brief for Petitioner NCUA 37.
The reason that the NCUA has never interpreted, and does not
contend that it
could interpret, the geographical limitation
to allow a credit union to be composed of members from an unlimited
number of unrelated geographic units, is that to do so would render
the geographicallimitation meaningless. Under established
principles of statutory interpretation, we must interpret the
occupational limitation in the same way.
Petitioners have advanced one reason why we should interpret the
occupational limitation differently. They contend that whereas the
geographical limitation uses the word "within" and is thus
"prepositional," the occupationallimitation uses the word "having"
and is thus "participial" (and therefore less limiting). See Brief
for Petitioner NCUA 31. There is, however, no reason why a
participial phrase is inherently more open-ended than a
prepositional one; indeed, certain participial phrases can narrow
the relevant universe in an exceedingly effective manner-for
example, "persons having February 29th as a wedding anniversary."
Reading the two parallel clauses in the same way, we must conclude
that, just as all members of a geographically defined federal
credit union must be drawn from the same "neighborhood, community,
or rural district," members of an occupationally defined federal
credit union must be united by the same "common bond of
occupation."
Finally, by its terms, § 109 requires that membership in federal
credit unions "shall be limited." The NCUA's interpretation-under
which a common bond of occupation must unite only the members of
each unrelated employer grouphas the potential to read these words
out of the statute entirely. The NCUA has not contested that, under
its current interpretation, it would be permissible to grant a
charter to a conglomerate credit union whose members would include
the employees of every company in the United States. Nor can it:
Each company's employees would be a "group," and
503
each such "group" would have its own "common bond of
occupation." Section 109, however, cannot be considered a
limitation on credit union membership if at the same time it
permits such a
limitless result.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the NCUA's current
interpretation of § 109 is contrary to the unambiguously expressed
intent of Congress and is thus impermissible under the first step
of
Chevron.10 The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
therefore affirmed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JusTICE SOUTER, and
JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
In determining that respondents have standing under the
zone-of-interests test to challenge the National Credit Union
Administration's (NCUA's) interpretation of the "common bond"
provision of the Federal Credit Union Act (FCUA), 12 U. S. C. §
1759, the Court applies the test in a manner that is contrary to
our decisions and, more importantly, that all but eviscerates the
zone-of-interests requirement. In my view, under a proper
conception of the inquiry, "the interest sought to be protected by"
respondents in this action is not "arguably within the zone of
interests to be protected" by the common bond provision.
Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc.
v.
Camp, 397
U. S. 150, 153 (1970). Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I
Respondents brought this suit under § 10(a) of the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. § 702. To establish
their standing to sue here, respondents must demonstrate
lOWe have no need to consider § 109's legislative history,
which, as both courts below found, is extremely "murky" and a
"slender reed on which to place reliance." 90 F. 3d, at 530
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
504
O'CONNOR, J., dissenting
that they are "adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action
within the meaning of a relevant statute."
Ibid.; see
Air
Courier Conference v.
Postal Workers, 498 U. S. 517, 523
(1991); Lujan v.
National Wildlife Federation,
497 U. S. 871,
882-883 (1990). The two aspects of that requirement correspond to
the familiar concepts in standing doctrine of "injury in fact"
under Article III of the Constitution and "zone of interests" under
our prudential standing principles. See,
First, respondents must show that they are "adversely affected
or aggrieved," i.
e., have suffered injury in fact.
Air
Courier, supra, at 523;
National Wildlife Federation,
supra, at 883. In addition, respondents must establish that the
injury they assert is "within the meaning of a relevant statute,"
i.
e., satisfies the zone-of-interests test.
Air Courier,
supra, at 523;
National Wildlife Federation, supra, at
883, 886. Specifically, "the plaintiff must establish that the
injury he complains of
(his aggrievement, or the adverse
effect
upon him), falls within the 'zone of interests'
sought to be protected by the statutory provision whose violation
forms the legal basis for his complaint."
National Wildlife
Federation, supra, at 883; see also
Air Courier, supra,
at 523-524.
The "injury respondents complain of," as the Court explains, is
that the NCUA's interpretation of the common bond provision "allows
persons who might otherwise be their customers to be ... customers"
of petitioner AT&T Family Federal Credit Union.
Ante, at
488, n. 4. Put another way, the injury is a loss of respondents'
customer base to a competing entity, or more generally, an injury
to respondents' commercial interest as a competitor. The relevant
question under the zone-of-interests test, then, is whether injury
to respondents' commercial interest as a competitor "falls within
the zone of interests sought to be protected by the [common bond]
provision."
E. g., Air Courier, supra, at 523-524. For
instance, in
Data Processing, where the plaintiffs-like
respondents here-alleged competitive injury to
505
their commercial interest, we found that the plaintiffs had
standing because "their commercial interest was sought to be
protected by the ... provision which they alleged had been
violated."
Bennett, supra, at 176 (discussing
Data
Processing).
The Court adopts a quite different approach to the
zoneof-interests test today, eschewing any assessment of whether
the common bond provision was intended to protect respondents'
commercial interest. The Court begins by observing that the terms
of the common bond provision-"[fJederal credit union membership
shall be limited to groups having a common bond of occupation or
association, or to groups within a well-defined neighborhood,
community, or rural district," 12 U. S. C. § 1759-expressly limit
membership in federal credit unions to persons belonging to certain
"groups." Then, citing other statutory provisions that bar federal
credit unions from serving nonmembers, see §§ 1757(5)-(6), the
Court reasons that one interest sought to be protected by the
common bond provision "is an interest in limiting the markets that
federal credit unions can serve."
Ante, at 493. The Court
concludes its analysis by observing simply that respondents, "[a]s
competitors of federal credit unions, ... certainly
have
[that] interest ... , and the NCUA's interpretation has affected
that interest."
Ante, at 493-494 (emphasis added).
Under the Court's approach, every litigant who establishes
injury in fact under Article III will automatically satisfy the
zone-of-interests requirement, rendering the zone-ofinterests test
ineffectual. See
Air Courier, supra, at 524 ("mistak[e]" to
"confiat[e] the zone-of-interests test with injury in fact"). That
result stems from the Court's articulation of the relevant
"interest." In stating that the common bond provision protects an
"interest in limiting the markets that federal credit unions can
serve,"
ante, at 493, the Court presumably uses the term
"markets" in the sense of
customer markets, as opposed to,
for instance, product markets:
506
The common bond requirement and the provisions prohibiting
credit unions from serving nonmembers combine to limit the
customers a credit union can serve, not the services a credit union
can offer.
With that understanding, the Court's conclusion that respondents
"have" an interest in "limiting the [customer] markets that federal
credit unions can serve" means little more than that respondents
"have" an interest in enforcing the statute. The common bond
requirement limits a credit union's membership, and hence its
customer base, to certain groups, 12 U. s. C. § 1759, and in the
Court's view, it is enough to establish standing that respondents
"have" an interest in limiting the customers a credit union can
serve. The Court's additional observation that respondents'
interest has been "affected" by the NCVA's interpretation adds
little to the analysis; agency interpretation of a statutory
restriction will of course affect a party who has an interest in
the restriction. Indeed, a party presumably will bring suit to
vindicate an interest only if the interest has been affected by the
challenged action. The crux of the Court's zone-ofinterests
inquiry, then, is simply that the plaintiff must "have" an interest
in enforcing the pertinent statute.
A party, however, will invariably have an interest in enforcing
a statute when he can establish injury in fact caused by an alleged
violation of that statute. An example we used in
National
Wildlife Federation illustrates the point. There, we
hypothesized a situation involving "the failure of an agency to
comply with a statutory provision requiring 'on the record'
hearings." 497 U. S., at 883. That circumstance "would assuredly
have an adverse effect upon the company that has the contract to
record and transcribe the agency's proceedings," and so the company
would establish injury in fact.
Ibid. But the company would
not satisfy the zoneof-interests test, because "the provision was
obviously enacted to protect the interests of the parties to the
proceedings and not those of the reporters."
Ibid.; see
Air Courier,
507
498 U. S., at 524. Under the Court's approach today, however,
the reporting company would have standing under the
zone-of-interests test: Because the company is injured by the
failure to comply with the requirement of on-the-record hearings,
the company would certainly "have" an interest in enforcing the
statute.
Our decision in
Air Courier, likewise, cannot be squared
with the Court's analysis in this action.
Air Courier
involved a challenge by postal employees to a decision of the
Postal Service suspending its statutory monopoly over certain
international mailing services. The postal employees alleged a
violation of the Private Express Statutes (PES)the provisions that
codify the Service's postal monopolyciting as their injury in fact
that competition from private mailing companies adversely affected
their employment opportunities. 498 U. S., at 524. We concluded
that the postal employees did not have standing under the
zone-of-interests test, because "the PES were not designed to
protect postal employment or further postal job opportunities."
Id., at 528. As with the example from
National Wildlife
Federation, though, the postal employees would have established
standing under the Court's analysis in this action: The employees
surely "had" an interest in enforcing the statutory monopoly, given
that suspension of the monopoly caused injury to their employment
opportunities.
In short, requiring simply that a litigant "have" an interest in
enforcing the relevant statute amounts to hardly any test at all.
That is why our decisions have required instead that a party
"establish that the
injury he complains of ... falls within
the 'zone of interests' sought to be protected by the statutory
provision" in question.
National Wildlife Federation, supra,
at 883 (emphasis added); see
Bennett, 520 U. S., at 176. In
Air Courier, for instance, after noting that the asserted
injury in fact was "an adverse effect on employment opportunities
of postal workers," we characterized "[t]he question before us" as
"whether the adverse effect on the
508
employment opportunities of postal workers ... is within the
zone of interests encompassed by the PES." 498 U. S., at 524; see
also
National Wildlife Federation, supra, at 885886 (noting
that asserted injury is to the plaintiffs' interests in
"recreational use and aesthetic enjoyment," and finding those
particular interests "are among the
sorts of interests [the]
statutes were specifically designed to protect").
Our decision last Term in
Bennett v.
Spear is in
the same vein. There, the Fish and Wildlife Service, in an effort
to preserve a particular species of fish, issued a biological
opinion that had the effect of requiring the maintenance of minimum
water levels in certain reservoirs. A group of ranchers and
irrigation districts brought suit asserting a "competing interest
in the water," alleging, in part, injury to their commercial
interest in using the reservoirs for irrigation water. 520 U. S.,
at 160. The plaintiffs charged that the Service had violated a
provision of the Endangered Species Act requiring "use [of] the
best scientific and commercial data available."
Id., at 176.
We did not ask simply whether the plaintiffs "had" an interest in
holding the Service to the "best data" requirement. Instead, we
assessed whether the injury asserted by the plaintiffs fell within
the zone of interests protected by the "best data" provision, and
concluded that the economic interests of parties adversely affected
by erroneous biological opinions are within the zone of interests
protected by that statute.
Id., at 176-177 (observing that
one purpose of the "best data" provision "is to avoid needless
economic dislocation produced by agency officials zealously but
unintelligently pursuing their environmental objectives").
The same approach should lead the Court to ask in this action
whether respondents' injury to their commercial interest as
competitors falls within the zone of interests protected by the
common bond provision. Respondents recognize that such an inquiry
is mandated by our decisions. They argue that "the competitive
interests of banks
were
509
among Congress's concerns when it enacted the Federal Credit
Union Act," and that the common bond provision was motivated by
"[c]ongressional concerns that chartering credit unions could
inflict an unwanted competitive injury on the commercial banking
industry." Brief for Respondents 24-25. The Court instead asks
simply whether respondents have an interest in enforcing the common
bond provision, an approach tantamount to abolishing the
zone-of-interests requirement altogether.
II
Contrary to the Court's suggestion,
ante, at 494-495, its
application of the zone-of-interests test in this action is not in
concert with the approach we followed in a series of cases in which
the plaintiffs, like respondents here, alleged that agency
interpretation of a statute caused competitive injury to their
commercial interests. In each of those cases, we focused, as in
Bennett, Air Courier, and
National Wildlife
Federation, on whether competitive injury to the plaintiff's
commercial interest fell within the zone of interests protected by
the relevant statute.
The earliest of the competitor standing decisions was
Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc.
v.
Camp, 397
U. S. 150 (1970), in which we first formulated the
zone-of-interests requirement. There, an association of data
processors challenged a decision of the Comptroller of the Currency
allowing national banks to provide data processing services. The
data processors alleged violation of, among other statutes, § 4 of
the Bank Service Corporation Act, 76 Stat. 1132, which provided
that "[n]o bank service corporation may engage in any activity
other than the performance of bank services." 397 U. S., at
154-155. We articulated the applicable test as "whether the
interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably
within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the
statute ... in question."
Id., at 153.
510
O'CONNOR, J., dissenting
In answering that question, we assessed whether the injury
asserted by the plaintiffs was to an interest arguably within the
zone of interests protected by the relevant statute. The data
processors, like respondents here, asserted "economic injury" from
the "competition by national banks in the business of providing
data processing services."
Id., at 152, 154. We concluded
that the data processors' "commercial interest was sought to be
protected by the anticompetition limitation contained in § 4,"
Bennett, supra, at 176 (discussing
Data Processing),
explaining that the provision "arguably brings a competitor within
the zone of interests protected by it," 397 U. S., at 156.
Our decision in
Data Processing was soon followed by
another case involving § 4 of the Bank Service Corporation Act,
Arnold Tours, Inc. v.
Camp, 400 U. S. 45 (1970)
(per curiam). Arnold Tours was similar to
Data
Processing, except that the plaintiffs were a group of travel
agents challenging an analogous ruling of the Comptroller
authorizing national banks to provide travel services. The travel
agents, like the data processors, alleged injury to their
commercial interest as competitors. 400 U. S., at 45. Not
surprisingly, we ruled that the travel agents had established
standing, on the ground that Congress did not "desir[e] to protect
data processors alone from competition" through § 4.
Id., at
46. Unlike in this action, then, our decisions in
Arnold
Tours and
Data Processing turned on the conclusion that
economic injury to competitors fell within the zone of interests
protected by the relevant statute.
We decided
Investment Company Institute v.
Camp,
401 U. S. 617 (1971)
(ICI), later in the same Term as
Arnold Tours. The case involved a challenge by an
association of investment companies to a regulation issued by the
Comptroller that authorized national banks to operate mutual funds.
The investment companies alleged that the regulation violated
provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, 1933, 48 Stat. 162, barring
national banks from entering the business
511
of investment banking. We found that the investment companies
had standing, but did not rest that determination simply on the
notion that the companies had an interest in enforcing the
prohibition against banks entering the investment business.
Instead, we observed that, as in
Data Processing, "Congress
had arguably legislated against ... competition" through the
Glass-Steagall Act. 401 U. S., at 620-621.
The final decision in this series was
Clarke v.
Securities Industry Assn., 479 U. S. 388 (1987).
That case involved provisions of the McFadden Act, 44 Stat. 1228,
allowing a national bank to establish branch offices only in its
home State, and then only to the extent that banks of the home
State were permitted to have branches under state law. The statute
defined a "branch" office essentially as one that offered core
banking services. The Comptroller allowed two banks to establish
discount brokerage offices at locations outside the allowable
branching area, on the rationale that brokerage services did not
constitute core banking services and that the offices therefore
were not "branch" offices. Representatives of the securities
industry challenged the Comptroller's action, alleging a violation
of the statutory branching limitations.
We held that the plaintiffs had standing under the
zone-ofinterests test, but again, not simply on the ground that
they had an interest in enforcing the branching limits. Instead, we
found that, as in
ICI, Congress had "arguably legislated
against ... competition" through those provisions. 479 U. S., at
403 (internal quotation marks omitted). Specifically, Congress
demonstrated "a concern to keep national banks from gaining a
monopoly control over credit and money through unlimited
branching."
Ibid.; see also
id., at 410 (STEVENS, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ("The general policy
against branching was based in part on a concern about the national
banks' potential for becoming massive financial institutions that
would establish
512
monopolies on financial services"). The Court makes no analogous
finding in this action that Congress, through the common bond
provision, sought to prevent credit unions from gaining "monopoly
control" over the customers of banking services.
It is true, as the Court emphasizes repeatedly, see
ante,
at 488-492, 494-498, that we did not require in this line of
decisions that the statute at issue was designed to benefit the
particular party bringing suit. See
Clarke, supra, at
399400. In
Arnold Tours and
Data Processing, for
instance, it was sufficient that Congress desired to protect the
interests of competitors generally through § 4 of the Bank Service
Corporation Act, even if Congress did not have in mind the
particular interests of travel agents or data processors. See
Arnold Tours, supra, at 46. In
Clarke, likewise, the
antibranching provisions of the McFadden Act may have been intended
primarily to protect state banks, and not the securities industry,
from competitive injury. Respondents thus need not establish that
the common bond provision was enacted specifically to benefit
commercial banks, any more than they must show that the provision
was intended to benefit Lexington State Bank, Piedmont State Bank,
or any of the particular banks that filed this suit.
In each of the competitor standing cases, though, we found that
Congress had enacted an "anticompetition limitation," see
Bennett, 520 U. S., at 176 (discussing
Data
Processing), or, alternatively, that Congress had "legislated
against ... competition," see
Clarke, supra, at 403;
ICI,
supra, at 620621, and accordingly, that the
plaintiff-competitor's "commercial interest was sought to be
protected by the anticompetition limitation" at issue,
Bennett,
supra, at 176. We determined, in other words, that "the injury
[the plaintiff] complain[ed] of ... [fell] within the zone of
interests sought to be protected by the [relevant] statutory
provision."
National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S., at 883.
The Court fails to undertake that analysis here.
513
III
Applying the proper zone-of-interests inquiry to this action, I
would find that competitive injury to respondents' commercial
interests does not arguably fall within the zone of interests
sought to be protected by the common bond provision. The terms of
the statute do not suggest a concern with protecting the business
interests of competitors. The common bond provision limits
"[f]ederal credit union membership ... to groups having a common
bond of occupation or association, or to groups within a
well-defined neighborhood, community, or rural district." 12 U. S.
C. § 1759. And the provision is framed as an exception to the
preceding clause, which confers membership on "incorporators and
such other persons and incorporated and unincorporated
organizations ... as may be elected ... and as such shall each,
subscribe to at least one share of its stock and pay the initial
installment thereon and a uniform entrance fee."
Ibid. The
language suggests that the common bond requirement is an internal
organizational principle concerned primarily with defining
membership in a way that secures a financially sound organization.
There is no indication in the text of the provision or in the
surrounding language that the membership limitation was even
arguably designed to protect the commercial interests of
competitors.
Nor is there any nontextual indication to that effect.
Significantly, the operation of the common bond provision is much
different from the statutes at issue in
Clarke, ICI, and
Data Processing. Those statutes evinced a congressional
intent to legislate against competition,
e. g., Clarke,
supra, at 403, because they imposed direct restrictions on
banks generally, specifically barring their entry into certain
markets. In
Data Processing and
ICI, "the question
was what activities banks could engage in at all," and in
Clarke, "the question [was] what activities banks [could]
engage in without regard to the limitations imposed by state
branching law." 479 U. S., at 403.
514
The operation of the common bond provision does not likewise
denote a congressional desire to legislate against competition.
First, the common bond requirement does not purport to restrict
credit unions from becoming large, nationwide organizations, as
might be expected if the provision embodied a congressional concern
with the competitive consequences of credit union growth. See Brief
for Petitioner NCUA 25-26 (Navy Federal Credit Union has 1.6
million members; American Airlines Federal Credit Union has 157,000
members); see also S. Rep. No. 555, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1934)
(citing "employees of the United States Government" as a "specific
group with a common bond of occupation or association").
More tellingly, although the common bond provision applies to
all credit unions, the restriction operates against credit unions
individually: The common bond requirement speaks only to whether a
particular credit union's membership can include a given
group of customers, not to whether credit unions
in general
can serve that group. Even if a group of would-be customers does
not share the requisite bond with a particular credit union,
nothing in the common bond provision prevents that same group from
joining a different credit union that is within the same
"neighborhood, community, or rural district" or with whose members
the group shares an adequate "occupation[al] or association[al]"
connection. 12 U. S. C. § 1759. Also, the group could conceivably
form its own credit union. In this sense, the common bond
requirement does not limit credit unions collectively from serving
any customers, nor does it bar any customers from being served by
credit unions.
In
Data Processing, ICI, and
Clarke, by contrast,
the statutes operated against national banks generally, prohibiting
all banks from competing in a particular market: Banks in general
were barred from providing a specific type of service
(Data
Processing and
IC!), or from providing services at a
particular location
(Clarke). Thus, whereas in
Data
Proc-
515
essing customers could not obtain data processing
services from
any national bank, and in
Clarke
customers outside of the permissible branching area likewise could
not obtain financial services from
any national bank, in
this action customers who lack an adequate bond with the members of
a particular credit union can still receive financial services from
a
different credit union. Unlike the statutes in
Data
Processing, ICI, and
Clarke, then, the common bond
provision does not erect a competitive boundary excluding credit
unions from any identifiable market.
The circumstances surrounding the enactment of the FCUA also
indicate that Congress did not intend to legislate against
competition through the common bond provision. As the Court
explains,
ante, at 493, n. 6, the FCUA was enacted in the
shadow of the Great Depression; Congress thought that the ability
of credit unions to "come through the depression without failures,
when banks have failed so notably, is a tribute to the worth of
cooperative credit and indicates clearly the great potential value
of rapid national credit union extension." S. Rep. No. 555, at 3-4.
Credit unions were believed to enable the general public, which had
been largely ignored by banks, to obtain credit at reasonable
rates. See
id., at 2-3;
First Nat'l Bank &
Trust Co. v.
National Credit Union Administration,
988 F.2d
1272, 1274 (CADC), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 907 (1993). The
common bond requirement "was seen as the cement that united credit
union members in a cooperative venture, and was, therefore, thought
important to credit unions' continued success." 988 F. 2d, at 1276.
"Congress assumed implicitly that a common bond amongst members
would ensure both that those making lending decisions would know
more about applicants and that borrowers would be more reluctant to
default."
Ibid.; see
ante, at 493, n. 6; A. Burger
& T. Dacin, Field of Membership: An Evolving Concept 7-8 (2d
ed. 1992).
The requirement of a common bond was thus meant to ensure that
each credit union remains a cooperative institu-
516
tion that is economically stable and responsive to its members'
needs. See 988 F. 2d, at 1276. As a principle of internal
governance designed to secure the viability of individual credit
unions in the interests of the membership, the common bond
provision was in no way designed to impose a restriction on all
credit unions in the interests of institutions that might one day
become competitors. "Indeed, the very notion seems anomalous,
because Congress' general purpose was to encourage the
proliferation of credit unions, which were expected to provide
service to those would-be customers that banks disdained."
Id., at 1275; see also
Branch Bank &
Trust
Co. v.
National Credit Union Administration Bd.,
786 F.2d
621, 625-626 (CA4 1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1063
(1987).
That the common bond requirement would later come to be viewed
by competitors as a useful tool for curbing a credit union's
membership should not affect the zone-of-interests inquiry. The
pertinent question under the zone-of-interests test is whether
Congress
intended to protect certain interests through a
particular provision, not whether, irrespective of congressional
intent, a provision may have the
effect of protecting those
interests. See
Clarke, 479 U. S., at 394 (the "matter [is]
basically one of interpreting congressional intent");
id.,
at 400; 988 F. 2d, at 1276 ("To be sure, as time passed-as credit
unions flourished and competition among consumer lending
institutions intensified-bankers began to see the common bond
requirement as a desirable limitation on credit union expansion
.... But that fact, assuming it is true, hardly serves to
illuminate the intent of the Congress that first enacted the common
bond requirement in 1934"). Otherwise, competitors could bring
suits challenging the interpretation of a host of provisions in the
FCUA that might have the unintended effect of furthering their
competitive interest, such as restrictions on the loans credit
unions can make or on the sums credit unions can borrow. See 12 U.
S. C. §§ 1757(5), (6).
517
In this light, I read our decisions as establishing that there
must at least be
some indication in the statute, beyond the
mere fact that its enforcement has the effect of incidentally
benefiting the plaintiff, from which one can draw an inference that
the plaintiff's injury arguably falls within the zone of interests
sought to be protected by that statute. The provisions we construed
in
Clarke, ICI, and
Data Processing allowed such an
inference: Where Congress legislates against competition, one can
properly infer that the statute is at least arguably intended to
protect competitors from injury to their commercial interest, even
if that is not the statute's principal objective. See
Bennett, 520 U. S., at 176-177 (indicating that
zone-of-interests test is satisfied if one of several statutory
objectives corresponds with the interest sought to be protected by
the plaintiff). Accordingly, "[t]here [was] sound reason to infer"
in those cases "that Congress intended [the] class [of plaintiffs]
to be relied upon to challenge agency disregard of the law."
Clarke, supra, at 403 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
The same cannot be said of respondents in this action, because
neither the terms of the common bond provision, nor the way in
which the provision operates, nor the circumstances surrounding its
enactment, evince a congressional desire to legislate against
competition. This, then, is an action where "the plaintiff's
interests are so marginally related to or inconsistent with the
purposes implicit in the statute that it cannot reasonably be
assumed that Congress intended to permit the suit." 479 U. S., at
399. The zone-of-interests test "seeks to exclude those plaintiffs
whose suits are more likely to frustrate than to further statutory
objectives,"
id., at 397, n. 12, and one can readily
envision circumstances in which the interests of competitors, who
have the incentive to suppress credit union expansion in all
circumstances, would be at odds with the statute's general aim of
supporting the growth of credit unions that are cohesive and hence
financially stable.
518
The Court's attempt to distinguish
Air Courier, ante, at
498-499, is instructive in this regard. The Court observes that
here, unlike in
Air Courier, the plaintiffs suffer
"competitive and direct injury." 498 U. S., at 528, n. 5. But the
lack of competitive injury was pertinent in
Air Courier
because the statutes alleged to have been violated-the PESwere
"competition statutes that regulate the conduct of competitors."
Ibid. The common bond provision, for all the noted reasons,
is not a competition law, and so the mere presence of "competitive
and direct injury" should not establish standing. See
Hardin
v.
Kentucky Util. Co., 390 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1968).
Thus, while in
Air Courier "the statute in question
regulated competition [but] the interests of the plaintiff
employees had nothing to do with competition,"
ante, at 499,
here, the common bond provision does
not regulate
competition but the interests of the plaintiff have
everything to do with competition. In either case, the
plaintiff's injury is at best "marginally related" to the interests
sought to be protected by the statute,
Clarke, supra, at
399, and the most that can be said is that the provision has the
incidental effect of benefiting the plaintiffs. That was not enough
to establish standing in
Air Courier, and it should not
suffice here.
IV
Prudential standing principles "are 'founded in concern about
the proper-and properly limited-role of the courts in a democratic
society.'"
Bennett, supra, at 162 (quoting
Warth v.
Seldin, 422 U.
S. 490, 498 (1975)). The zone-ofinterests test is an integral
part of the prudential standing inquiry, and we ought to apply the
test in a way that gives it content. The analysis the Court
undertakes today, in my view, leaves the zone-of-interests
requirement a hollow one. As with the example in
National
Wildlife Federation, where the reporting company suffered
injury from the alleged statutory violation, but the injury to the
company's commercial interest was not within the zone of interests
protected by
519
the statute, here, too, respondents suffer injury from the
NCVA's interpretation of the common bond requirement, but the
injury to their commercial interest is not within the zone of
interests protected by the provision. Applying the zoneof-interests
inquiry as it has been articulated in our decisions, I conclude
that respondents have failed to establish standing. I would
therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand
the action with instructions that it be dismissed.
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