Page:United States v. Texas (2023).pdf/34

Rh least arguably trace their authority to order vacatur to language in a statute and practice in some lower courts. But the questions here are serious ones. And given the volume of litigation under the APA, this Court will have to address them sooner or later. Until then, we would greatly benefit from the considered views of our lower court colleagues.

Suppose my doubts about vacatur are unfounded. Suppose the APA really does authorize both traditional forms of equitable relief (in §703) and a more expansive equitable power to vacate agency action (in §706). Even if that were true, a district court should “think twice—and perhaps twice again—before granting” such sweeping relief. Arizona v. Biden, 40 F. 4th, at 396 (Sutton, C. J., concurring).

After all, this Court has long instructed that equitable relief “must be limited to the inadequacy that produced [the] injury in fact.” Gill v. Whitford, 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 14) (internal quotation marks omitted). Any remedy a judge authorizes must not be “more burdensome [to the defendant] than necessary to redress the complaining parties.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979). And faithful application of those principles suggests that an extraordinary remedy like vacatur would demand truly extraordinary circumstances to justify it. Cf. S. Bray & P. Miller, Getting Into Equity, 97 N. D. L. Rev. 1763, 1797 (2022) (“[I]n equity it all connects—the broader and deeper the remedy the plaintiff wants, the stronger the plaintiff’s story needs to be.”).

The temptations a single district judge may face when invited to vacate agency rules are obvious. Often, plaintiffs argue that everyone deserves to benefit from their effort to litigate the case and the court’s effort to decide it. Judges may think efficiency and uniformity favor the broadest possible relief. But there are serious countervailing considerations. As with universal injunctions, vacatur can stymie