Yesterday the Supreme Court heard argument in United States v. Texas. This case brings together standing, merits, and remedial issues of unusual complexity. Here are a few points of commentary on the vacatur question, about which there was a range of views on the Court, to put it mildly.
One of the occupational hazards of studying remedies is that the Court will often grant certiorari on remedial questions only to have them disappear because of how the question of standing or merits was resolved (e.g., Summer v. Earth Island Institute, Trump v. Hawaii). Here that is very possible given the challenges to Texas's argument on standing. But even if the Court does make it through standing and the merits, the Texas Solicitor General conceded to Justices Alito and Sotomayor that the Court didn't need to reach the question of whether the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) authorizes vacatur because the remedial question can be resolved entirely under Section 1252 (Transcript p. 120).
