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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 22–1008

															_________________

															CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD
OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eighth circuit

															[July 1, 2024]

															Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															The default statute of limitations for suits
against the United States requires “the complaint [to be] filed
within six years after the right of action first accrues.” 28 U. S.
C. §2401(a). We must decide when a claim brought under the
Administrative Procedure Act “accrues” for purposes of this
provision. The answer is straightforward. A claim accrues when the
plaintiff has the right to assert it in court—and in the case of
the APA, that is when the plaintiff is injured by final agency
action.

															I

															Corner Post is a truckstop and convenience
store located in Watford City, North Dakota. It was incorporated in
2017, and in 2018, it opened for business. Like most merchants,
Corner Post accepts debit cards as a form of payment. While
convenient for customers, debit cards are costly for merchants:
Every transaction requires them to pay an “interchange fee” to the
bank that issued the card. The amount of the fee is set by the
payment networks, like Visa and Mastercard, that process the
transaction between the banks of merchants and cardholders. The
cost quickly adds up. Since it opened, Corner Post has paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars in interchange fees—which has
meant higher prices for its customers.

															Interchange fees have long been a sore point for
merchants. For many years, payment networks had free rein over the
fee amount—and because they used the promise of per-transaction
profit to compete for the banks’ business, they had significant
incentive to raise the fees. Merchants—who would lose customers if
they declined debit cards—had little choice but to pay whatever the
networks charged. Left unregulated, interchange fees ballooned.

															Congress eventually stepped in. The Durbin
Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act of 2010 tasks the Federal Reserve Board with setting
“standards for assessing whether the amount of any interchange
transaction fee . . . is reasonable and proportional to the cost
incurred by the issuer with respect to the transaction.” 124 Stat.
2068, 15 U. S. C. §1693 o –2(a)(3)(A). Discharging this duty,
the Board promulgated Regulation II, which sets a maximum
interchange fee of $0.21 per transaction plus .05% of the
transaction’s value. See Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing,
76 Fed. Reg. 43394, 43420 (2011). The Board published the rule on
July 20, 2011.

															Four months later, a group of retail-industry
trade associations and individual retailers sued the Board, arguing
that Regulation II allows costs that the statute does not. See NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS , 958 F. Supp. 2d
85, 95–96 (DC 2013). The District Court agreed, id ., at
99–109, but the D. C. Circuit reversed, concluding “that the
Board’s rules generally rest on reasonable constructions of the
statute,” NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS , 746 F.3d
474, 477 (2014).

															Corner Post, of course, did not exist when the
Board adopted Regulation II or even during the D. C. Circuit
litigation. But after opening its doors, it too became frustrated
by interchange fees, and in 2021, joined a suit brought against the
Board under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The complaint
alleges that Regulation II is unlawful because it allows payment
networks to charge higher fees than the statute permits. See 5 U.
S. C. §§706(2)(A), (C).

															The District Court dismissed the suit as barred
by 28 U. S. C. §2401(a), the applicable statute of limitations,
2022 WL 909317, *7–*9 (ND, Mar. 11, 2022), and the Eighth Circuit
affirmed, North Dakota Retail Assn. v. Board of Governors
of FRS , 55 F. 4th 634 (2022). Following other Circuits, it
distinguished between “facial” challenges to a rule (like Corner
Post’s challenge to Regulation II) and challenges to a rule
“as-applied” to a particular party. Id ., at 640–641. The
Eighth Circuit held that “when plaintiffs bring a facial challenge
to a final agency action, the right of action accrues, and the
limitations period begins to run, upon publication of the
regulation.” Id ., at 641. On this view, §2401(a)’s 6-year
limitations period began in 2011, when the Board published
Regulation II, and expired in 2017, before Corner Post swiped its
first debit card. See id. , at 643. Corner Post’s suit was
therefore too late.

															The Eighth Circuit’s decision deepened a circuit
split over when §2401(a)’s statute of limitations begins to run for
APA suits challenging agency action. At least six Circuits now hold
that the limitations period for “facial” APA challenges begins on
the date of final agency action— e . g ., when the rule
was promulgated—regardless of when the plaintiff was injured. See, e . g ., id ., at 641; Wind River Min.
Corp. v. United States , 946 F.2d 710, 715 (CA9 1991); Dunn-McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park
Serv. , 112 F.3d 1283 , 1287 (CA5 1997); Harris v. FAA , 353 F.3d 1006 , 1009–1010 (CADC 2004); Hire Order Ltd. v. Marianos , 698 F.3d 168, 170 (CA4 2012); Odyssey Logistics
& Tech. Corp. v. Iancu , 959 F.3d 1104, 1111–1112 (CA
Fed. 2020). By contrast, the Sixth Circuit has stated a generally
applicable rule that §2401(a)’s limitations period begins when the
plaintiff is injured by agency action, even if that injury did not
occur until many years after the action became final. Herr v. United States Forest Serv. , 803 F.3d 809, 820–822 (2015)
(“When a party first becomes aggrieved by a regulation that exceeds
an agency’s statutory authority more than six years after the
regulation was promulgated, that party may challenge the regulation
without waiting for enforcement proceedings” (emphasis deleted)).
We granted certiorari to resolve the split. 600 U. S. ___
(2023).

															II

															Three statutory provisions control our
analysis: 5 U. S. C. §702 and §704, the relevant APA provisions,
and 28 U. S. C. §2401(a), the relevant statute of limitations. The
APA provisions grant Corner Post a cause of action subject to
certain conditions, and §2401(a) sets the window within which
Corner Post can assert its claim.

															Section 702 authorizes persons injured by agency
action to obtain judicial review by suing the United States or one
of its agencies, officers, or employees. See Abbott
Laboratories v. Gardner , 387 U.S.
136 , 140–141 (1967). It provides that “[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 explained that §702 “requir[es] a litigant to show, at the
outset of the case, that he is injured in fact by agency action.” Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. , 514 U.S.
122 , 127 (1995). Thus, a litigant cannot bring an APA claim
unless and until she suffers an injury.[ 1 ]

															While §702 equips injured parties with a cause
of action, §704 limits the agency actions that are subject to
judicial review. Unless another statute makes the agency’s action
reviewable (and none does for Regulation II), judicial review is
available only for “final agency action.” §704. In most cases,
then, a plaintiff can only challenge an action that “mark[s] the
consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process” and is “one by
which rights or obligations have been determined, or from which
legal consequences will flow.” Bennett v. Spear , 520 U.S.
154 , 177–178 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Note
that §702’s injury requirement and §704’s finality requirement work
hand in hand: Each is a “necessary, but not by itself . . .
sufficient, ground for stating a claim under the APA.” Herr ,
803 F. 3d, at 819.

															The applicable statute of limitations, 28 U. S.
C. §2401(a), contains the language we must interpret: “[E]very
civil action commenced against the United States shall be barred
unless the complaint is filed within six years after the right
of action first accrues .” (Emphasis added.) This provision
applies generally to suits against the United States unless the
timing provision of a more specific statute displaces it. See, e . g ., 33 U. S. C. §1369(b) (deadline to challenge
certain agency actions under the Clean Water Act).

															The Board contends that an APA claim “accrues”
when agency action is “final” for purposes of §704—injury, it says,
is necessary for the suit but irrelevant to the statute of
limitations.[ 2 ] We disagree. A
right of action “accrues” when the plaintiff has a “complete and
present cause of action”— i . e ., when she has the right
to “file suit and obtain relief.” Green v. Brennan ,
578 U.S. 547, 554 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). An APA
plaintiff does not have a complete and present cause of action
until she suffers an injury from final agency action, so the
statute of limitations does not begin to run until she is
injured.

															III

															Congress enacted §2401(a) in 1948, two years
after it enacted the APA. See 62 Stat. 971. Section 2401(a)’s
predecessor was the statute-of-limitations provision for the Little
Tucker Act, which gave district courts jurisdiction over non-tort
monetary claims not exceeding $10,000 against the United States.
See §24, 36 Stat. 1093 (“That no suit against the Government of the
United States shall be allowed under this paragraph unless the same
shall have been brought within six years after the right accrued
for which the claim is made”); Brief for Professor Aditya Bamzai et
al. as Amici Curiae 5–6. When Congress revised and
recodified the Judicial Code in 1948, it converted the Little
Tucker Act’s statute of limitations into a general statute of
limitations for all suits against the Government—replacing “under
this paragraph” with “every civil action against the United
States.” But Congress continued to start the 6-year limitations
period when the right “accrues.” Compare 36 Stat. 1093 (“after the
right accrued for which the claim is made”) with §2401(a) (“after
the right of action first accrues”).

															In 1948, as now, “accrue” had a well-settled
meaning: A “right accrues when it comes into existence,” United
States v. Lindsay , 346 U.S.
568 , 569 (1954)— i . e ., “ ‘when the plaintiff has a
complete and present cause of action,’ ” Gabelli v. SEC , 568 U.S.
442 , 448 (2013) (quoting Wallace v. Kato , 549 U.S.
384 , 388 (2007)). This definition has appeared “in dictionaries
from the 19th century up until today.” Gabelli , 568 U. S.,
at 448. Legal dictionaries in the 1940s and 1950s uniformly
explained that a cause of action “ ‘accrues’ when a suit may be
maintained thereon.” Black’s Law Dictionary 37 (4th ed. 1951)
(Black’s); see also, e.g. , Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 15–16
(2d ed. 1948) (Ballentine’s) (“[A]ccrual of cause of action”
defined as the “coming or springing into existence of a right to
sue” (boldface deleted)). Thus, we have explained that a cause of
action “does not become ‘complete and present’ for limitations
purposes”—it does not accrue —“until the plaintiff can file
suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning
Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal. , 522 U.S.
192 , 201 (1997).

															Importantly, contemporaneous dictionaries also
explained that a cause of action accrues “on [the] date that damage
is sustained and not [the] date when causes are set in motion which
ultimately produce injury.” Black’s 37. “[I]f an act is not legally
injurious until certain consequences occur, it is not the mere
doing of the act that gives rise to a cause of action, but the
subsequent occurrence of damage or loss as the consequence of the
act, and in such case no cause of action accrues until the loss
or damage occurs .” Ballentine’s 16 (emphasis added). Thus, when
Congress used the phrase “right of action first accrues” in
§2401(a), it was well understood that a claim does not “accrue” as
soon as the defendant acts, but only after the plaintiff suffers
the injury required to press her claim in court.

															Our precedent treats this definition of accrual
as the “standard rule for limitations periods.” Green , 578
U. S., at 554. “We have repeatedly recognized that Congress
legislates against the ‘standard rule that the limitations period
commences when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of
action.’ ” Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson , 545
U.S. 409 , 418 (2005) (quoting Bay Area Laundry , 522 U.
S., at 201). It is “unquestionably the traditional rule” that
“[a]bsent other indication, a statute of limitations begins to run
at the time the plaintiff ‘has the right to apply to the court for
relief.’ ” TRW Inc. v. Andrews , 534 U.S.
19 , 37 (2001) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (quoting 1
H. Wood, Limitation of Actions §122a, p. 684 (rev. 4th ed. 1916)
(Wood)). Conversely, we have “reject[ed]” the possibility that a
“limitations period commences at a time when the [plaintiff] could
not yet file suit” as “inconsistent with basic limitations
principles.” Bay Area Laundry , 522 U. S., at 200.

															This traditional rule constitutes a strong
background presumption. While the “standard rule can be displaced
such that the limitations period begins to run before a plaintiff
can file a suit,” we “ ‘will not infer such an odd result in the
absence of any such indication’ in the text of the limitations
period.” Green , 578 U. S., at 554 (quoting Reiter v. Cooper , 507 U.S.
258 , 267 (1993)). “Unless Congress has told us otherwise in the
legislation at issue, a cause of action does not become ‘complete
and present’ for limitations purposes until the plaintiff can file
suit and obtain relief.” Bay Area Laundry , 522 U. S., at
201.

															There is good reason to conclude that Congress
codified the traditional accrual rule in §2401(a). Nothing “in the
text of [§2401(a)’s] limitations period” gives any indication that
it begins to run before the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action. Green , 578 U. S., at 554. Rather, §2401(a)
uses standard language that had a well-settled meaning in 1948:
“right of action first accrues.” Moreover, Congress knew how to
depart from the traditional rule to create a limitations period
that begins with the defendant’s action instead of the plaintiff ’s
injury: Just six years before it enacted §2401(a), Congress passed
the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, which required challenges
to Office of Price Administration actions to be filed “[w]ithin a
period of sixty days after the issuance of any regulation or
order .” §203(a), 56 Stat. 31 (emphasis added); see also
Administrative Orders Review Act (Hobbs Act), §4, 64 Stat. 1130
(1950) (allowing petitions for review “within sixty days after
entry of ” a “final order reviewable under this Act”). Section
2401(a), by contrast, stuck with the standard accrual language.

															Section 2401(a) thus operates as a statute of
limitations rather than a statute of repose. “[A] statute of
limitations creates ‘a time limit for suing in a civil case, based
on the date when the claim accrued.’ ” CTS Corp. v. Waldburger , 573 U.S.
1 , 7–8 (2014) (quoting Black’s 1546 (9th ed. 2009)). That
describes §2401(a), with its reference to when the right of action
“accrues,” to a tee. “A statute of repose, on the other hand, puts
an outer limit on the right to bring a civil action” that is
“measured not from the date on which the claim accrues but instead
from the date of the last culpable act or omission of the
defendant.” 573 U. S., at 8. Such statutes bar “ ‘any suit that is
brought after a specified time since the defendant acted . . . even
if this period ends before the plaintiff has suffered a resulting
injury.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Black’s 1546). That describes
statutes like the Hobbs Act, which sets a filing deadline of 60
days from the “entry” of the agency order. 64 Stat. 1130. Statutes
of limitations “require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution
of known claims”; statutes of repose reflect a “legislative
judgment that a defendant should be free from liability after the
legislatively determined period of time.” CTS Corp. , 573 U.
S., at 8–9 (internal quotation marks omitted).[ 3 ] The Board asks us to interpret §2401(a) as a
defendant- protective statute of repose that begins to run when
agency action becomes final. But §2401(a)’s plaintiff-focused
language makes it an accrual-based statute of limitations.

															*  *  *

															Section 2401(a) embodies the plaintiff-centric
traditional rule that a statute of limitations begins to run only
when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.
Because injury, not just finality, is required to sue under the
APA, Corner Post’s cause of action was not complete and present
until it was injured by Regulation II. Therefore, its suit is not
barred by the statute of limitations.

															IV

															The Board concedes that some claims accrue for
purposes of §2401(a) when the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action—in other words, it admits that “accrue” carries its
usual meaning for some claims. But it argues that facial challenges
to agency rules are different, accruing when agency action is final
rather than when the plaintiff can assert her claim. See also post , at 5–6 (Jackson, J., dissenting). The Board raises
several arguments to support its position, but none work.

															A

															The Board puts the most weight on the many
specific statutory review provisions that start the clock at
finality. See also post , at 12–15 (Jackson, J., dissenting).
The Hobbs Act, for example, requires persons aggrieved by certain
final orders and regulations of the Federal Communications
Commission, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secretary of
Transportation, among others, to petition for review “within 60
days after [the] entry” of the final agency action. 28 U. S. C.
§§2342, 2344; see also, e . g ., 29 U. S. C. §655(f )
(suits challenging Occupational Safety and Health Administration
standards must be filed “prior to the sixtieth day after such
standard is promulgated”). The Board contends that such statutes
reflect a standard administrative-law practice of starting the
limitations period when “any proper plaintiff ” can challenge the
final agency action. Brief for Respondent 9. There is “no sound
basis,” it insists, “for instead applying a
challenger-by-challenger approach to calculate the limitations
period on APA claims.” Ibid. ; see also post , at 9–10
(Jackson, J., dissenting).

															1

															This argument hits the immutable obstacle of
§2401(a)’s text. Unlike the specific review provisions that the
Board cites, §2401(a) does not refer to the date of the
agency action’s “entry” or “promulgat[ion]”; it says “right of
action first accrues.” That textual difference matters. To begin,
the latter language reflects a statute of limitations and the
former a statute of repose. Moreover, the specific review
provisions actually undercut the Board’s argument, because they
illustrate that Congress has sometimes employed the Board’s
preferred final-agency-action rule—but did not do so in §2401(a).
As we observed in Rotkiske v. Klemm , it is
“particularly inappropriate” to read language into a statute of
limitations “when, as here, Congress has shown that it knows how to
adopt the omitted language or provision.” 589 U.S. 8, 14
(2019).

															In arguing to the contrary, post , at
12–16, the dissent ignores the textual differences between §2401(a)
and finality-focused specific review provisions—flouting Rotkiske ’s admonition to heed such distinctions. According
to the dissent, we cannot expect “Congress to have explicitly
stated that accrual in §2401(a) starts at the point of final agency
action when §2401(a) is a residual provision” that applies
generally. Post , at 15. But §2401(a)’s text reflects a
choice: Congress took the Little Tucker Act’s plaintiff-focused
limitations period—which began when “the right accrued for which
the claim is made,” 36 Stat. 1093—and made it generally applicable
to “every” suit against the United States, §2401(a); see Part III, supra . Congress could have created a separate residual
provision for suits challenging agency action and pegged its
limitations period to the moment of finality, using statutes like
the Emergency Price Control Act as a model. It chose a different
path.

															Undeterred, the dissent insists that by the time
§2401(a) was enacted, Congress had “uniformly expressed [a]
judgment” that the limitations period for agency suits should be
defendant-centric and start with finality. Post , at 14.
Again, this argument disregards §2401(a)’s text in favor of alleged
congressional intent divined from other statutes with very
different language. “As this Court has repeatedly stated, the text
of a law controls over purported legislative intentions unmoored
from any statutory text”; the Court “may not ‘replace the actual
text with speculation as to Congress’ intent.’ ” Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta , 597 U.S. 629, 642 (2022) (quoting Magwood v. Patterson , 561 U.S.
320 , 334 (2010)).

															In any event, the dissent misunderstands the
history. See post , at 14, and n. 6. (Notably, the Board
itself does not make this argument.) While the Emergency Price
Control Act of 1942 preceded the APA (1946) and §2401(a) (1948),
most finality-focused limitations provisions, like the Hobbs Act
(1950), came later. See post , at 12–13, and n. 5; e.g. , 5 U. S. C. §7703(b)(1) (added by 92 Stat. 1143
(1978)). To conjure its supposed backdrop, the dissent cites a
hodgepodge of other pre-1948 statutes that started the clock at
finality. Post , at 14, n. 6. But these statutes generally
governed challenges to orders adjudicating a party’s own
rights—what we today might call “as-applied” challenges. For
example, 7 U. S. C. §194(a) provided a 30-day limitations period
for a meatpacker to appeal an order finding that the packer “has
violated or is violating any provision” of the statute regulating
business practices in the meatpacking industry. 42 Stat. 161–162;
see also, e . g ., 15 U. S. C. §45(c) (persons required
by a Federal Trade Commission order to cease a business practice
may obtain review of that order within 60 days). Statutes like
these do not contradict the plaintiff-centric standard accrual
rule, because a party subject to such an order suffers legally
cognizable injury at the same time that the order becomes
final.[ 4 ]

															Thus, even if the “intention” Congress
“expressed” in textually distinct statutes could overcome
§2401(a)’s language, post , at 14, the dissent’s history
would not support its supposed background presumption—that the
limitations period for facial challenges to regulations begins when
the rule becomes final even if the plaintiff does not yet have a
complete and present cause of action. Instead, the best course, as
always, is to stick with the ordinary meaning of the text that
actually applies, §2401(a). Given the settled, plaintiff-centric
meaning of “right of action first accrues” in 1948—not to mention
in the Little Tucker Act—the dissent cannot “displace” this
“standard rule” with scattered citations to different, inapposite
statutes. Green , 578 U. S., at 554.

															2

															The standard accrual rule that §2401(a)’s
limitations period exemplifies is plaintiff specific —even if repose provisions like the Hobbs Act eschew
a “challenger-by- challenger” approach. Brief for Respondent 9. The
Board’s rule would start the limitations period applicable to the
plaintiff not when she had a complete and present cause of
action but when the agency action was final and, theoretically,
some other plaintiff was injured and could have sued. But
§2401(a)’s text focuses on a specific plaintiff: “ the complaint is filed within six years after the right of
action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.)

															The dissent disputes §2401(a)’s plaintiff
specificity by pointing out that it does not say “ the plaintiff
’s right of action first accrues.” Post , at 9. True, but
it does use the definite article “the” to link “ the complaint” with “ the right of action.” So the most natural
interpretation is that its limitations period begins when the
cause of action associated with the complaint —the plaintiff ’s
cause of action—is complete. And while the dissent cites dictionary
definitions of “accrue” that mention “ ‘ a right to sue,’ ” ibid ., the statute’s use of the definite article “the” takes
precedence. The Board and the dissent read §2401(a) as if it says
“the complaint is filed within six years after a right of
action [ i . e ., anyone’s right of action] first
accrues”—which, of course, it does not.

															In fact, we have explained that the traditional
accrual rule looks to when “ the plaintiff ”—this particular
plaintiff—“has a complete and present cause of action.” Green , 578 U. S., at 554 (internal quotation marks omitted;
emphasis added). No precedent suggests that the traditional rule
contemplates the Board’s hypothetical “when could someone else have
sued” sort of inquiry.[ 5 ]
Rather, the “statute of limitations begins to run at the time the plaintiff has the right to apply to the court for
relief.” TRW Inc. , 534 U. S., at 37 (opinion of Scalia, J.)
(internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added).[ 6 ]

															Importing the Board’s special administrative-law
rule into §2401(a) would create a defendant-focused rule for agency
suits while retaining the traditional challenger- specific accrual
rule for other suits against the United States. That would give the
same statutory text—“right of action first accrues”—different
meanings in different contexts, even though those words had a
single, well-settled meaning when Congress enacted §2401(a). See
Part III, supra . The Board’s interpretation would thereby
decouple the statute of limitations from any injury “such that the
limitations period begins to run before a plaintiff can file a
suit”—for some , but not all , suits governed by
§2401(a). Green , 578 U. S., at 554. We “will not infer such
an odd result in the absence of any such indication in the text of
the limitations period.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks
omitted).

															B

															Turning to §2401(a)’s text, the Board draws
significance from this sentence: “The action of any person under
legal disability or beyond the seas at the time the claim accrues
may be commenced within three years after the disability ceases.”
This language, the Board stresses, “necessarily reflects Congress’s
understanding that a claim can ‘accrue[ ]’ for purposes of Section
2401(a)” even when a person is unable to sue. Brief for Respondent
24. True enough. It is a mystery, however, why the Board finds this
helpful. The tolling exception applies when the plaintiff had a complete and present cause of action after he was
injured but his legal disability or absence from the country
“prevent[ed] him from bringing a timely suit.” Goewey v. United States , 222 Ct. Cl. 104, 113, 612 F.2d 539, 544
(1979) ( per curiam ). What matters for accrual is when the
plaintiff had “the right to apply to the court for relief,”
not whether some external impediment prevented her from doing so.
Wood §122a, at 684 (emphasis added). The exception, therefore,
sheds no light on when the clock started ticking for Corner
Post—but it does show Congress’s concern for plaintiffs who might
lose a cause of action through no fault of their own.

															C

															The Board also leans on our precedent—namely, Reading Co. v. Koons , 271 U.S.
58 (1926), and Crown Coat Front Co. v. United
States , 386 U.S.
503 (1967)—to support its unusual interpretation of “accrual.”
See also post , at 6–9 (Jackson, J., dissenting). Again, the
Board comes up empty.

															In Koons , we interpreted the statute of
limitations under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, which
barred actions brought more than two years after “ ‘the cause of
action accrued.’ ” 271 U. S., at 60 (quoting ch. 149, §6, 35 Stat.
66). We held that the plaintiff ’s wrongful-death claim accrued
when the employee died, even though the estate’s administrator was
not appointed until later and the administrator was “the only
person authorized by the statute to maintain the action.” 271 U.
S., at 60. The Board interprets Koons to hold that a claim
accrued at a time when no plaintiff could sue. Thus, the Board
reasons, it is consistent with the meaning of “accrue” to say that
Corner Post’s claim “accrued” before it could sue.

															The Board’s characterization of Koons is
incomplete. Koons explained that the administrator “acts
only for the benefit of persons specifically designated in the
statute,” and at the “time of death there are identified persons
for whose benefit the liability exists and who can start the
machinery of the law in motion to enforce it, by applying for the
appointment of an administrator.” Id. , at 62. If a
beneficiary sued in her individual capacity immediately after the
employee’s death, she could amend her suit to describe herself as
“executor or administrator of the decedent.” Ibid. So “at
the death of decedent, there are real parties in interest who may
procure the action to be brought.” Id. , at 62–63. While it
is true that the claim accrued before any particular administrator
was appointed, the beneficiaries on whose behalf any administrator
would seek relief—the “real parties in interest”—had the right to
“procure the action” after the employee died. Given this unique
context, Koons does not contradict the proposition that a
claim generally accrues when the plaintiff has a complete and
present cause of action.

															Nor does Crown Coat . That case concerned
a contract dispute in which a Government contractor sought an
equitable adjustment to the payment it received. 386 U. S., at 507.
The contract required the contractor to present its claim to the
contracting officer and Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals;
its claim was “not subject to adjudication in the courts” until it
was denied by the Board. Id ., at 511. The question presented
was whether §2401(a)’s statute of limitations began to run when the
Board issued its final determination or at an earlier date. Id ., at 507.

															We held that the right of action first accrued
when the Board denied the contractor’s claim, because the
contractor had “the right to resort to the courts only upon the
making of that administrative determination.” Id ., at 512.
We explained that §2401(a)’s phrase “right of action” refers to
“the right to file a civil action in the courts against the United
States.” Id ., at 511. Given the contract’s
administrative-exhaustion requirement, “the contractor’s claim was
subject only to administrative, not judicial, determination in the
first instance”; the plaintiff was “not legally entitled to ask the
courts to adjudicate [its] claim as an original matter.” Id ., at 511–512, 515. So its “claim or right to bring a
civil action against the United States” did not “matur[e]” until
the Board made its final decision. Id ., at 514. Crown
Coat thus supports Corner Post: The Court interpreted §2401(a)
to embody the traditional rule that a claim accrues when the
plaintiff has the right to bring suit in court.

															Notwithstanding Crown Coat ’s holding, the
Board and the dissent try to marshal support from its dicta. The
Court noted that it is hazardous “to define for all purposes when a
‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues’ ”; it cautioned that those words
should be “ ‘interpreted in the light of the general purposes of
the statute and of its other provisions’ ” and the “ ‘practical
ends’ ” served by time limitations. Id ., at 517 (quoting Koons , 271 U. S., at 62). Seizing on this language, the
Board insists that the word “accrues” is a chameleon, taking on
different meanings in different contexts—and in the
administrative-law context, a right of action “accrues” when a
regulation is final, full stop. See also post , at 6
(Jackson, J., dissenting) (citing Crown Coat for the
proposition that “the word ‘accrues’ lacks any fixed meaning”).

															The Board and the dissent vastly overread—in
fact, they misread— Crown Coat . The Court did not suggest
that the same words “right of action first accrues” in a single
statute should mean different things in different
contexts—which is how the Board and the dissent would have us
interpret §2401(a). Rather, the Court made its observation in the
course of distinguishing §2401(a) from a statutory scheme that
departed from the traditional accrual rule.[ 7 ] 386 U. S., at 516–517. Moreover, as we have already
explained, the Court interpreted §2401(a)—the very statute at issue
in this case—to start the clock when the plaintiff is “legally
entitled” to file suit. Id. , at 515. It also specifically
rejected the Government’s position that the time can run even
before a plaintiff ’s “civil action against the United States
matures.” Id ., at 514; see also ibid. (noting that
the Government’s position “would have unfortunate impact”). We
therefore do not read Crown Coat ’s “general purposes”
language to contradict either its holding or the “ ‘standard rule’
for limitations periods.” Green , 578 U. S., at 554.

															Even if Crown Coat ’s dicta supported
sapping “accrues” of any “fixed meaning,” post , at 6
(Jackson, J., dissenting), this approach has been contravened by
the weight of subsequent precedent. Our limitations cases from the
last several decades have instead emphasized the strength of the
traditional, plaintiff-centric accrual rule and demanded that
departures be justified by the statutory “text of the limitations
period.” Green , 578 U. S., at 554; see also, e . g ., Graham County , 545 U. S., at 418–419
(explaining that in Reiter v. Cooper , 507 U. S., at
267, the Court “declin[ed] to countenance the ‘odd result’ that a
federal cause of action and statute of limitations arise at
different times ‘absen[t] . . . any such indication in the statute’
”); Bay Area Laundry , 522 U. S., at 201.

															D

															Finally, the Board raises policy concerns. It
emphasizes that agencies and regulated parties need the finality of
a 6-year cutoff. After that point, facial challenges impose
significant burdens on agencies and courts. Moreover, if they are
successful, such challenges upset the reliance interests of the
agencies and regulated parties that have long operated under
existing rules. See also post , at 18–24 (Jackson, J.,
dissenting).

															“[P]leas of administrative inconvenience . . .
never ‘justify departing from the statute’s clear text.’ ” Niz-Chavez v. Garland , 593 U.S. 155, 169 (2021)
(quoting Pereira v. Sessions , 585 U. S 198, 217
(2018)). Congress could have chosen different language in §2401(a)
or created a general statute of repose for agencies. It did
not.

															That is enough to dispatch the Board’s policy
arguments, but we add that its concerns are overstated. Put aside
facial challenges like Corner Post’s. Regulated parties “may always
assail a regulation as exceeding the agency’s statutory authority
in enforcement proceedings against them” or “petition an agency to
reconsider a longstanding rule and then appeal the denial of that
petition.” Herr , 803 F. 3d, at 821–822. So even on the
Board’s preferred interpretation, “[a] federal regulation that
makes it six years without being contested does not enter a
promised land free from legal challenge.” Id ., at 821.
Likewise, the dissent imagines an alternative reality of total
finality that simply does not exist. See post , at 21–23.

															Moreover, the opportunity to challenge agency
action does not mean that new plaintiffs will always win or that
courts and agencies will need to expend significant resources to
address each new suit. Given that major regulations are typically
challenged immediately, courts entertaining later challenges often
will be able to rely on binding Supreme Court or circuit precedent.
If neither this Court nor the relevant court of appeals has weighed
in, a court may be able to look to other circuits for persuasive
authority. And if no other authority upholding the agency action is
persuasive, the court may have more work to do, but there is all
the more reason for it to consider the merits of the newcomer’s
challenge.[ 8 ]

															Turning to the other side of the policy ledger,
the Board slights the arguments supporting the plaintiff-centric
accrual rule. In addition to being compelled by §2401(a)’s text,
this rule vindicates the APA’s “basic presumption” that anyone
injured by agency action should have access to judicial review. Abbott Labs. , 387 U. S., at 140. It also respects our
“deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone

															should have his own day in court.” Richards v. Jefferson County , 517
U.S. 793 , 798 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under
the Board’s finality rule, only those fortunate enough to suffer an
injury within six years of a rule’s promulgation may bring an APA
suit. Everyone else—no matter how serious the injury or how illegal
the rule—has no recourse.[ 9 ]

															The dissent also raises a host of policy
arguments masquerading as “matter[s] of congressional intent.” Post , at 18–24. And it warns that today’s opinion will
“devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.” Post ,
at 23. This claim is baffling—indeed, bizarre—in a case about a
statute of limitations. The Solicitor General, whose mandate is to
protect the interests of the Federal Government, comes nowhere
close to suggesting that a plaintiff-centric interpretation of
§2401(a) spells the end of the United States as we know it. Perhaps
the dissent believes that the Code of Federal Regulations is full
of substantively illegal regulations vulnerable to meritorious
challenges; or perhaps it believes that meritless challenges will
flood federal courts that are too incompetent to reject them. We
have more confidence in both the Executive Branch and the
Judiciary. But we do agree with the dissent on one point: “ ‘[T]he
ball is in Congress’ court.’ ” Post , at 24 (quoting Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. , 550 U.S.
618 , 661 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting)). Section 2401(a) is
75 years old. If it is a poor fit for modern APA litigation, the
solution is for Congress to enact a distinct statute of limitations
for the APA.

															*  *  *

															An APA claim does not accrue for purposes of
§2401(a)’s 6-year statute of limitations until the plaintiff is
injured by final agency action. Because Corner Post filed suit
within six years of its injury, §2401(a) did not bar its challenge
to Regulation II. We reverse the Eighth Circuit’s judgment to the
contrary and remand the case for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 The dissent asserts that §702
“restricts who may challenge agency action,” yet its injury
requirement “says nothing about” the cause of action or elements of
the claim. Post , at 16. But surely the dissent does not mean
to suggest that an uninjured person may bring an APA claim.
Whether one calls injury a restriction on who may sue or an element
of the cause of action, the relevant, undisputed point is that a
plaintiff cannot sue under the APA unless she is “injured in fact
by agency action.” Newport News , 514 U. S., at
127. 2 The Board leaves open the
possibility that someone could bring an as-applied challenge to a
rule when the agency relies on that rule in enforcement proceedings
against that person, even if more than six years have passed since
the rule’s promulgation. But Corner Post, as a merchant rather than
a payment network, is not regulated by Regulation II—so it will
never be the target of an enforcement action in which it could
challenge that rule. Justice Kavanaugh asserts that “Corner Post
can obtain relief in this case only because the APA authorizes
vacatur of agency rules.” Post , at 1 (concurring opinion).
Whether the APA authorizes vacatur has been subject to thoughtful
debate by Members of this Court. See, e . g ., United
States v. Texas , 599 U.S. 670, 693–702 (2023) (Gorsuch,
J., concurring in judgment). We took this case only to decide how
§2401(a)’s statute of limitations applies to APA claims. We
therefore assume without deciding that vacatur is available under
the APA. 3 Perplexingly, the dissent
rejects this distinction, post , at 10–11, even though our
precedent clearly recognizes it: CTS Corp. acknowledged the
“substantial overlap between the policies of the two types of
statute” but concluded nonetheless that “each has a distinct
purpose and each is targeted at a different actor.” 573 U. S., at
8. 4 There is another reason to
doubt the dissent’s supposed background limitations principle for
facial challenges to agency rules: In the 1940s, “most
administrative activity was adjudicative in nature”; agencies
“rarely, if ever, adopted sweeping regulations.” K. Hickman &
R. Pierce, 1 Administrative Law §1.3, p. 26 (7th ed. 2024). The
dissent errs by extrapolating a general congressional intent that
all agency suits be subject to a finality-based limitations rule
based on pre-1948 statutes that governed a subset of agency
actions—adjudicative orders—and were enacted before facial
challenges to regulations became common. It is hard to see how
provisions governing when a party may challenge an order
adjudicating her own rights could set any kind of background rule
for facial APA challenges to generally applicable
regulations. 5 While the dissent attempts to
cabin our precedent describing the plaintiff-specific standard
accrual rule, nothing in those cases suggests that the rule is only
plaintiff-specific for “plaintiff-specific causes of action.” Post , at 10; see, e . g ., Gabelli v. SEC , 568 U.S.
442 , 448 (2013) (The “ ‘standard rule’ ” that a “claim accrues
‘when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action’ ”
has “governed since the 1830s” and “appears in dictionaries from
the 19th century up until today”). And regardless, the dissent’s
assertion that “administrative-law claims” are not “plaintiff specific,” post , at 6, is mystifying given that
an APA plaintiff cannot sue until she suffers an injury, see
5 U. S. C. §702; n. 1, supra . By emphasizing the
plaintiff-agnostic aspects of facial challenges to agency action, post , at 10, 16–18, the dissent conflates the
defendant-focused substance of an APA claim with its
plaintiff-specific cause of action . 6 Moreover, there may be cases
where no one is injured and able to sue at the time of final
agency action— e . g ., if the agency delays a rule’s
enforcement—but the Board would still start the clock then. Cf. Toilet Goods Assn., Inc. v. Gardner , 387 U.S.
158 , 162–166 (1967) (agency rule was final but challenge was
not yet ripe). So the Board’s position cannot be reconciled even
with a challenger-agnostic form of the traditional accrual rule,
which at least would require that someone have a complete
and present cause of action before the limitations period
begins. 7 The Court distinguished the
limitations scheme at issue in McMahon v. United
States , 342 U.S.
25 (1951). That scheme involved two statutes: one requiring
“actions to be brought within two years after ‘the cause of action
arises’ ” and another “permit[ting] court action only if the claim
ha[d] been administratively disallowed, but set[ting] no time
within which a claim must be presented to the administrative body.” Crown Coat , 386 U. S., at 516–517. The McMahon Court
held that the claim accrued not after the administrative
disallowance that would enable the plaintiff to sue in court, but
at the time of the plaintiff ’s earlier injury. 342 U. S., at 27. Crown Coat attributed this holding to the unique two-statute
context: “[P]ostpon[ing] the usual time of accrual of the cause of
action [ i . e ., the time of injury] until the date of
disallowance” would have “permit[ted] the claimant to postpone
indefinitely the commencement of the running of the statutory
period.” 386 U. S., at 517; see McMahon , 342 U. S., at
27. 8 It also may be that some
injuries can only be suffered by entities that existed at the time
of the challenged action. Corner Post suggests that only parties
that existed during the rulemaking process can claim to have been
injured by a “procedural” shortcoming, like a deficient notice of
proposed rulemaking. Reply Brief 18–19. We need not resolve that
issue here because there is no dispute that Corner Post proffered
an injury that does not depend on its having existed when the Board
promulgated Regulation II: the rule’s alleged conflict with the
Durbin Amendment. The dissent’s observation that “the claims in
this case are procedural,” post , at 18, is confused.
Even if some of Corner Post’s claims might be procedural, its
central claim—that the regulation violates the statute—is a
prototypical substantive challenge. 9 Corner Post has no other way to
obtain meaningful review of Regulation II. Because Regulation II
does not directly regulate it, it will never be subject to
enforcement actions in which it may challenge the rule’s legality.
See n. 2, supra . Nor is the ability to petition the Board
for rulemaking to change Regulation II a sufficient substitute for de novo judicial review of its lawfulness: The agency’s
“discretionary decision to decline to take new action” would be
subject only to “deferential judicial review.” PDR Network,
LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, Inc. , 588 U.S.
1, 25 (2019) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in judgment). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 22–1008

															_________________

															CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD
OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eighth circuit

															[July 1, 2024]

															Justice Kavanaugh, concurring.

															I agree with the Court that a claim under the
Administrative Procedure Act accrues when the plaintiff is injured
by the challenged agency rule. I also agree with the Court that
today’s decision vindicates the APA’s “ ‘basic presumption’ that
anyone injured by agency action should have access to judicial
review.” Ante , at 21 (quoting Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner , 387
U.S. 136 , 140 (1967)).

															I write separately to explain a crucial
additional point: Corner Post can obtain relief in this case only
because the APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules.

															Corner Post challenged an agency rule that
regulates the fees that banks may charge. But Corner Post is not a
bank regulated by the rule. Rather, it is a business that must pay
the fees charged by the banks who are regulated by the rule. Corner
Post complains that the agency rule allows banks to charge fees
that are unreasonably high.

															Corner Post’s suit is a typical APA suit. An
unregulated plaintiff such as Corner Post often will sue under the
APA to challenge an allegedly unlawful agency rule that regulates
others but also has adverse downstream effects on the plaintiff. In
those cases, an injunction barring the agency from enforcing the
rule against the plaintiff would not help the plaintiff, because
the plaintiff is not regulated by the rule in the first place.
Instead, the unregulated plaintiff can obtain meaningful relief
only if the APA authorizes vacatur of the agency rule, thereby
remedying the adverse downstream effects of the rule on the
unregulated plaintiff.

															The APA empowers federal courts to “hold
unlawful and set aside agency action” that, as relevant here, is
arbitrary and capricious or is contrary to law. 5 U. S. C. §706(2).
The Federal Government and the federal courts have long understood
§706(2) to authorize vacatur of unlawful agency rules, including in
suits by unregulated plaintiffs who are adversely affected by an
agency’s regulation of others.

															Recently, the Government has advanced a
far-reaching argument that the APA does not allow vacatur. See
Brief for Respondent 42; Brief for United States in United
States v. Texas , O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, pp. 40–44.
Invoking a few law review articles, the Government contends that
the APA’s authorization to “set aside” agency action does not allow
vacatur, but instead permits a court only to enjoin an agency from
enforcing a rule against the plaintiff.

															If the Government were correct on that point,
Corner Post could not obtain any relief in this suit because, to
reiterate, Corner Post is not regulated by the rule to begin with.
And the APA would supply no remedy for most other unregulated but adversely affected parties who traditionally
have brought, and regularly still bring, APA suits challenging
agency rules.

															The Government’s position would revolutionize
long-settled administrative law—shutting the door on entire classes
of everyday administrative law cases. The Government’s newly minted
position is both novel and wrong. It “disregards a lot of history
and a lot of law.” M. Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal
Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J. 2305, 2311 (2024).

															The APA authorizes vacatur of agency rules;
therefore, Corner Post can obtain relief in this case.

															I

															Corner Post owns a truck stop and convenience
store in rural North Dakota. When a customer uses a debit card at
its business, Corner Post must pay a fee (known as an interchange
fee) to the bank that processes the customer’s transaction.

															As the Court explains, the Dodd-Frank Act
requires the Federal Reserve Board to “prescribe regulations” for
assessing whether interchange fees are “reasonable and proportional
to the cost incurred” in processing a debit-card transaction. 15 U.
S. C. §1693 o –2(a)(3)(A); see ante , at 2. Pursuant to
the Act, the Board has issued a rule that sets a maximum fee of
about 21 cents per transaction. 76 Fed. Reg. 43394, 43420 (2011).
For convenience, I will refer to that rule as the fee rule.

															Corner Post is not subject to the fee rule.
Corner Post does not charge interchange fees to its customers, and
Corner Post lacks any authority to set those fees. But because
Corner Post must pay the fees to banks, it is affected by
the agency’s rule setting the maximum fees that banks may charge.
In particular, Corner Post would be harmed by a fee rule that
allows unreasonably high fees and would benefit from a fee rule
that more strictly limits the fees that banks may charge.

															The APA authorizes any person who has been
“adversely affected or aggrieved” by a “final agency action” to
obtain judicial review in federal district court. 5 U. S. C. §§702,
704. In an APA suit, the district court “shall” “hold unlawful and
set aside agency action” that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse
of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”
§706(2)(A).

															Corner Post filed this APA suit because it
believes that the fee rule allows banks to charge unreasonably high
fees. In particular, Corner Post argues that the Board’s 21-cent
fee cap is unreasonably high and therefore arbitrary and capricious
under the APA. Corner Post asked the Federal District Court to
vacate the fee rule on the ground that the Board must more strictly
regulate bank fees (in other words, that the Board must set a lower
cap on the fees that banks may charge).

															Corner Post would not be able to obtain relief
in its lawsuit through any remedy other than vacatur. Corner Post
could not obtain relief through an injunction forbidding the Board
from enforcing the rule against it. That is because the rule does
not regulate Corner Post and therefore is not and cannot be
enforced against Corner Post in the first place. Nor could Corner
Post secure relief through an injunction against banks; the APA
does not authorize suits against private parties.

															Corner Post instead needs a remedy that acts
directly on the fee rule—specifically, by vacating it. Indeed,
without vacatur, it is hard to imagine what kind of lawsuit Corner
Post could file. At oral argument, the Government ultimately seemed
to acknowledge that reality and the necessity of the vacatur remedy
if Corner Post is to obtain any relief in this case. See Tr. of
Oral Arg. 76 (“it’s possible that the only way to provide this
party relief would be vacatur”).[ 1 ]

															II

															For Corner Post to obtain relief, an important
question therefore is whether the APA authorizes vacatur of
unlawful agency actions, including agency rules.

															The answer is yes—in light of the text and
history of the APA, the longstanding and settled precedent adhering
to that text and history, and the radical consequences for
administrative law and individual liberty that would ensue if
vacatur were suddenly no longer available.

															The text and history of the APA authorize
vacatur. The text directs courts to “set aside” unlawful agency
actions. 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A). When Congress enacted the APA in
1946, the phrase “set aside” meant “cancel, annul, or revoke.”
Black’s Law Dictionary 1612 (3d ed. 1933); see also Black’s Law
Dictionary 1537 (4th ed. 1951) (same); Bouvier’s Law Dictionary
1103 (W. Baldwin ed. 1926) (“To annul; to make void; as, to set
aside an award”). At that time, it was common for an appellate
court that reversed the decision of a lower court to direct that
the lower court’s “judgment” be “set aside,” meaning vacated. E . g ., Shawkee Mfg. Co. v. Hartford-Empire
Co. , 322 U.S.
271 , 274 (1944). Likewise, Congress used the phrase “set aside”
in many pre-APA statutes that plainly contemplated the vacatur of
agency actions.[ 2 ]

															The APA incorporated that common and
contemporaneous meaning of “set aside.” When a federal court sets
aside an agency action, the federal court vacates that order—in
much the same way that an appellate court vacates the judgment of a
trial court.

															The APA prescribes the same “set aside” remedy
for all categories of “agency action,” including agency
adjudicative orders and agency rules. §§551(13), 706(2). When a
federal court concludes that an agency adjudicative order is
unlawful, the court must vacate that order. Around the time when
Congress enacted the APA, the phrase “set aside” the agency order
meant vacate that order. See, e . g ., United
States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc. , 344 U.S.
33 , 38 (1952). And because federal courts must “set aside”
agency rules in the same way that they set aside agency orders,
successful challenges to agency rules must award the same remedy.
See M. Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev.
1121, 1131–1134 (2020). In short, to “set aside” a rule is to
vacate it.

															Longstanding precedent reinforces the text. Over
the decades, this Court has affirmed countless decisions that
vacated agency actions, including agency rules. See, e . g ., Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of Cal. , 591 U.S. 1, 36, and n. 7 (2020); Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc. , 531 U.S.
457 , 486 (2001); Board of Governors, FRS v. Dimension
Financial Corp. , 474 U.S.
361 , 364–365 (1986). Those decisions vacated the challenged
agency rules rather than merely providing injunctive relief that
enjoined enforcement of the rules against the specific plaintiffs.
See, e . g ., Regents of Univ. of Cal. , 591 U.
S., at 9 (holding that the rescission of a major federal program
“must be vacated”). And the D. C. Circuit—which handles the lion’s
share of the country’s administrative law cases—has likewise long
recognized vacatur as the usual relief when a court holds that
agency rules are unlawful. See, e . g ., National
Mining Assn. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers , 145 F.3d 1399 , 1409 (CADC 1998). In the words of the D. C.
Circuit: “When a reviewing court determines that agency regulations
are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the rules are vacated—not
that their application to the individual petitioners is
proscribed.” Harmon v. Thornburgh , 878 F.2d 484, 495,
n. 21 (CADC 1989).

															Importantly, as Corner Post’s lawsuit shows, the
availability of vacatur determines not only the extent of the
relief that courts may award in APA suits by regulated parties, but also whether unregulated parties can obtain
relief under the APA at all. In most APA litigation brought by
unregulated but adversely affected parties, a plaintiff can obtain
relief only through vacatur of the adverse agency action.
Prohibiting courts from vacating agency actions would essentially
close the courthouse doors on those unregulated plaintiffs—a
radical change to administrative law that would insulate a broad
swath of agency actions from any judicial review.[ 3 ]

															Vacatur is therefore essential to fulfill the
“basic presumption of judicial review” for parties who have been
“adversely affected or aggrieved” by federal agency action. Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner , 387
U.S. 136 , 140 (1967) (quotation marks omitted). The Court has
long applied that “strong presumption” unless there is a
“persuasive reason to believe” that Congress intended to bar review
of certain actions. Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family
Physicians , 476 U.S.
667 , 670 (1986) (quotation marks omitted); see also, e . g ., Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States
Fish and Wildlife Serv. , 586 U.S. 9, 22–23 (2018); Sackett v. EPA , 566 U.S.
120 , 128–131 (2012). Eliminating the vacatur remedy would
contravene the strong Abbott Laboratories presumption by
insulating many agency rules from meaningful judicial review (which
perhaps is the Government’s motivation for its recent
campaign).

															The absence of vacatur would also create an
asymmetry. For example, without the vacatur remedy, a bank could still challenge the Board’s regulation of interchange fees in
a suit for injunctive relief. The bank might argue that the fee cap
is too low and that the Board should be enjoined from enforcing the
cap against the bank—a result that would allow the bank to charge
higher fees. But because Corner Post is not subject to the Board’s
regulation, it could not contend that the fee cap is too high and
that the Board should be enjoined from keeping the cap so high. So
Corner Post would be precluded from suing even though the allegedly
unlawful regulation is causing it monetary injury.[ 4 ]

															III

															Eliminating vacatur as a remedy would
terminate entire classes of administrative litigation that have
traditionally been brought by unregulated parties.[ 5 ]

															One example is the wide range of administrative
law suits in which businesses target the allegedly unlawful
under-regulation of other businesses, such as their competitors.
For example, in National Credit Union Administration v. First National Bank & Trust Co. , several banks
challenged the decision of a federal agency to approve a series of
amendments to the charter of a federal credit union, a competitor
of the banks. 522 U.S.
479 , 484–485 (1998). The amendments were controversial because
they expanded the markets in which the credit union could operate,
thereby increasing competition against the banks. The Court held
that the banks could sue under the APA to challenge the agency’s
approval of those charter amendments, and also that the agency’s
approval of the amendments was unlawful. Of course, the District
Court could remedy the banks’ harm only by vacating the approval of
the amendments. In short, for the plaintiff in First National
Bank to have a remedy, the APA must have authorized
vacatur.

															Those competitor suits are ubiquitous in
administrative law. Some plaintiffs have challenged the favorable
classification of a competitor’s drugs or medical products, see, e.g. , American Bioscience, Inc. v. Thompson , 269 F.3d 1077 (CADC 2001); a research guideline that increased
competition for federal grants, see, e.g. , Sherley v. Sebelius , 610 F.3d 69 (CADC 2010); and a competitor’s
exemption from a generally applicable rule, see, e.g. , Regular Common Carrier Conference v. United States ,
793 F.2d 376 (CADC 1986) (arose under the review provision in 28 U.
S. C. §2342). The Court has consistently held that the plaintiffs
incurring those injuries are “adversely affected or aggrieved by
agency action” within the meaning of the APA. 5 U. S. C. §702; see First Nat. Bank , 522 U. S., at 488, 499; Investment
Company Institute v. Camp , 401 U.S.
617 , 618–621 (1971); Association of Data Processing Service
Organizations, Inc. v. Camp , 397
U.S. 150 , 157 (1970). But such competitor suits would be
largely if not entirely eradicated if the APA and similar statutory
review provisions did not authorize vacatur.

															Suits where one business challenges the
under-regulation of another go well beyond competitor suits. One
example is the Court’s landmark decision in Motor Vehicle
Manufacturers Association of United States, Inc. v. State
Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. , 463 U.S.
29 (1983). That case arose when several insurance companies
challenged a federal agency’s rescission of safety standards for
new motor vehicles. The Court held that the agency’s decision to
rescind those safety standards was subject to the same degree of
judicial review as the decision to issue the standards in the first
place. See id ., at 40–44. The Court also concluded that the
rescission of the safety standards was arbitrary and capricious.
See id ., at 44–57.

															At no point in that landmark opinion on the
judicial review of agency actions did the Court state (or need to
state) the obvious: Because the agency did not regulate the
insurers themselves, the insurers could obtain relief from the
downstream effects of the agency’s rescission of the safety
standards only if the insurers could obtain vacatur of that
rescission. The Court did not dwell on that remedial point because
the availability of vacatur was presumably obvious to all involved.
Only now—some 40 years later—does the Government imply that the
premise of State Farm was mistaken.

															The Government’s new position would also largely
eliminate the common form of environmental litigation where private
citizens sue a federal agency based on the externalities that an
agency action is likely to produce. Litigation often arises when a
federal agency approves a development project with potential
effects on the environment or on other property owners. Examples
include the construction of a new pipeline, see Delaware
Riverkeeper Network v. FERC , 753 F.3d 1304 (CADC 2014),
or the mining of federal land, see WildEarth Guardians v. Jewell , 738 F.3d 298 (CADC 2013). In those cases, the
plaintiff generally cannot bring an APA suit against the developer,
who is usually a private party. See §704 (authorizing review of
“agency action”). Instead, the plaintiff typically sues the federal
agency that approved the development and asks a federal court to
vacate that approval.

															Some of those suits proceed under the APA;
others proceed under federal statutory review provisions that
similarly authorize courts to “set aside” agency action. See, e . g ., 15 U. S. C. §717r(b) (Natural Gas Act); 16 U.
S. C. §825 l (b) (Federal Power Act). Regardless, all of those
suits depend on the availability of vacatur.

															Many APA suits similarly challenge federal
emissions limits or efficiency standards for cars, trucks, and
other sources of pollution. See, e . g ., American
Public Gas Assn. v. Department of Energy , 72 F. 4th 1324
(CADC 2023). When a plaintiff alleges that an emissions limit does
too little to stop third parties from polluting the environment,
the plaintiff cannot bring an APA suit against the third party.
Rather, the plaintiff must sue the agency that enacted the
emissions limit. If the vacatur remedy were unavailable, the agency
that enacted the emissions limit would never face litigation from
unregulated parties seeking stricter limits; the agency could face
litigation only from regulated parties seeking looser limits.

															Workers and their unions also regularly
challenge agency rules that rescind or loosen federal workplace
safety standards. See, e . g ., Transportation Div.
of Int’l Assn. of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transp. Workers v. Federal Railroad Admin. , 988 F.3d 1170 (CA9 2021)
(railroad industry); United Steel v. Mine Safety and
Health Admin. , 925 F.3d 1279 (CADC 2019) (mining industry).
Those suits often arise under statutory review provisions that,
like the APA, authorize courts to “set aside” agency actions. See, e . g ., 28 U. S. C. §2342(7) (railroad industry); 30 U.
S. C. §816(a)(1) (mining industry). And the suits all depend on the
availability of vacatur as a remedy. In particular, the workers may
prevail in those suits only through vacatur of the agency rules. So
if “set aside” did not mean vacate, workplace safety rules could be
challenged from only one direction—by employers who want less
regulation, not by workers who want more regulation.

															The examples of standard agency litigation that
depend on the availability of vacatur are seemingly endless.
Vacatur was essential when American workers challenged a Department
of Labor rule that unlawfully allowed employers to access
inexpensive foreign labor, with the effect of lowering American
workers’ wages. See Mendoza v. Perez , 754 F.3d 1002
(CADC 2014). Vacatur was essential when a county challenged the
Department of the Interior’s allowance for Indian gaming on nearby
land. See Butte Cty. v. Hogen , 613 F.3d 190 (CADC
2010). Vacatur is often essential when a State challenges an agency
action that does not regulate the State directly but has adverse
downstream effects on the State. See, e . g ., Department of Commerce v. New York , 588 U.S. 752
(2019).[ 6 ]

															I will stop there. But to be clear, I could go
on all day (and then some) listing cases where vacatur was
necessary for an unregulated but adversely affected plaintiff in an
APA suit to obtain relief.

															IV

															Against all of that text, history, precedent,
and common sense, the Government has recently rejected the
straightforward and long-accepted conclusion that the phrase “set
aside” in the APA authorizes vacatur. Instead, the Government
contends that plaintiffs harmed by agency rules must seek
injunctions against enforcement of those rules. See Brief for
United States in United States v. Texas , O. T. 2022,
No. 22–58, pp. 40–44. One effect of the Government’s new position
would be to insulate many agency rules from meaningful judicial
review in suits by unregulated but adversely affected parties.

															To support its new position, the Government has
offered an array of arguments. First , the Government says that vacatur
of a federal rule is akin to a nationwide injunction—in other
words, an injunction that prohibits the Government from enforcing a
law against anyone , not just the parties in a specific case.
The Government has contended that equitable relief is ordinarily
limited to the parties in a specific case. Therefore, nationwide
injunctions would be permissible only if Congress authorized
them.

															But in the APA, Congress did in fact depart from
that baseline and authorize vacatur. As noted above, the text of
the APA expressly authorizes federal courts to “set aside” agency
action. 5 U. S. C. §706(2). “Unlike judicial review of statutes, in
which courts enter judgments and decrees only against litigants,
the APA” and related statutory review provisions “go further by
empowering the judiciary to act directly against the challenged
agency action.” J. Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va.
L. Rev. 933, 1012 (2018). The text of §706(2) directs federal
courts to vacate agency actions in the same way that appellate
courts vacate the judgments of trial courts. See M. Sohoni, The
Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121, 1131–1134
(2020). The text of the APA therefore authorizes vacatur of agency
rules. By contrast, Congress has rarely authorized courts to act
directly on federal statutes or to prohibit their enforcement
against nonparties. As a result, background equitable principles
may control in those non-APA cases. Second , the Government argues that the
remedies available in APA suits are not governed by §706(2), which
directs courts to “set aside” agency action, but instead are
governed by §703. That argument is weak. Section 703 determines the
“form of proceeding” for suits under the APA and identifies the
federal actors against whom an “action for judicial review may be
brought.”[ 7 ] But “no court has
ever held that Section 703 implicitly delimits the kinds of
remedies available in an APA suit.” M. Sohoni, The Past and Future
of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J. 2305, 2337 (2024). For good
reason: As explained above, the ordinary meaning of “set aside” in
§706(2) has long been understood to refer to the remedy of vacatur.
The conclusion that §706 governs remedies is also supported by
§706(1), which authorizes courts to “compel agency action
unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed”—unmistakably a remedy.
By contrast, the text of §703 “speaks to venue and forms of
proceedings, not to remedies, and regardless, its listing of the
available forms of proceedings is nonexhaustive.” Sohoni, The Past
and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2337.

															To support its novel reliance on §703, the
Government suggests that the phrase “set aside” in §706(2) may
refer to a “rule of decision directing the reviewing court to
disregard unlawful” agency actions in “resolving the case before
it,” rather than the remedy of vacatur. Brief for United States in United States v. Texas , O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 40.
But the leading cases and legal dictionaries at the time of the
APA’s enactment did not use “set aside” in that manner. They
instead referred to setting aside (that is, vacating) judgments—a
meaning entirely consistent with the APA’s authorization to vacate
agency actions. See supra , at 5. The Government’s position
instead relies on some colloquial uses of the phrase “set aside” in
federal constitutional challenges to state statutes. See, e . g ., Brief for United States in United States v. Texas , O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 41 (citing Mallinckrodt Chemical Works v. Missouri ex rel.
Jones , 238 U.S.
41 , 54 (1915)); see also Mallinckrodt , 238 U. S., at 54
(referring to “one who seeks to set aside a state statute as
repugnant to the Federal Constitution”). That is a thin basis for
suddenly prohibiting entire categories of long-common
administrative litigation. Third , the Government seizes on
legislative history to argue that Congress did not expect the APA
to create new remedies against unlawful agency actions. But vacatur
was not a new remedy. On the contrary, several pre-APA statutes
authorized courts to “set aside” specific kinds of agency actions,
such as orders by the Interstate Commerce Commission. See n. 2, supra . This Court correctly understood those statutes to
authorize vacatur. For example, in litigation regarding the
regulation of railroads, this Court held that an unlawful ICC order
was “void.” United States v. Baltimore & Ohio R.
Co. , 293 U.S.
454 , 464 (1935). Similar examples abound. See, e . g ., Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal
Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2329–2335 (collecting cases). By
similarly authorizing courts to “set aside” agency actions, the APA
likewise authorized vacatur. §706(2).

															Moreover, although vacatur was not as common in
the years surrounding the APA’s enactment, there is a simple
explanation for that: Courts had few occasions to set aside agency
rules before this Court’s 1967 decision in Abbott
Laboratories v. Gardner , which significantly expanded
the opportunities for facial, pre-enforcement review of agency
rules. 387 U.S.
136 , 139–141. Indeed, it was not until Abbott
Laboratories that “preenforcement review of agency rules”
became “the norm, not the exception.” S. Breyer & R. Stewart,
Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy 1137 (2d ed. 1985).

															The Government’s current position on vacatur
would de facto overrule Abbott Laboratories as to
suits by unregulated parties. Not surprisingly, the Government’s
current position on vacatur sounds very similar to Justice Fortas’
dissent in a companion case to Abbott Laboratories , where he
lamented that in the wake of those decisions, a court would be able
to “suspend the operation of regulations in their entirety.” Gardner v. Toilet Goods Assn., Inc. , 387 U.S.
167 , 175 (1967). In any event, to the extent that the
Government worries that vacatur of rules (as opposed to orders) is
more common today than it was in the 1950s, the Government’s true
grievance is with Abbott Laboratories . Fourth , the Government objects to the
real-world consequences that occur when a federal district court
wrongly vacates a lawful rule. I appreciate that concern. But
federal law already gives the Government tools to mitigate those
consequences—if not avoid them altogether. When the Government
believes that a district court has erroneously vacated a rule (or
erroneously issued a preliminary injunction against a rule), the
Government may promptly seek a stay in the relevant federal court
of appeals. To determine whether to grant a stay, the court of
appeals may then promptly review the Government’s likelihood of
success on the merits, among other factors. If the court of appeals
denies a stay, the Government may seek further review in this
Court. See Labrador v. Poe , 601 U. S. ___, ___ (2024)
(Kavanaugh, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., at 2). The
Government’s frustration with the occasional incorrect district
court vacatur of an agency rule is understandable. But especially
given the readily accessible and regularly utilized procedures for
staying a district court’s vacatur,[ 8 ] we should not overreact by entirely gutting vacatur as
a remedy and thereby barring unregulated but adversely affected
parties from bringing APA suits.

															Not surprisingly, when asked at oral argument in
this case about the extraordinary consequences of its new
no-vacatur position, the Government seemed to backpedal and hedge a
bit. The Government suggested that vacatur may actually still be
appropriate if it is “the only way to give the party before the
court relief.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 76. The Government also said that
“it’s possible that the only way to provide” Corner Post “relief
would be vacatur.” Ibid. I appreciate the Government’s apparent attempt
to back away from its extreme stance. But in doing so, the
Government also revealed the weakness of its position. The meaning
of “set aside” in the APA cannot reasonably depend on the specific
party before the court. Either the APA authorizes vacatur, or it
does not.

															More to the point, the Government’s answer at
oral argument is a solution in search of a problem. The federal
courts have long interpreted the APA to authorize vacatur of agency
actions. Both the text and the history of the APA support that
interpretation, and courts have had no real difficulty applying the
remedy in practice. Some 78 years after the APA and 57 years after Abbott Laboratories , I would not suddenly throw out that
sound and settled interpretation of the APA and eliminate entire
classes of historically common and vitally important litigation
against federal agencies.

															*  *  *

															The Government’s crusade against vacatur would
create “strange and even absurd consequences.” Sohoni, The Past and
Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2340. In this
opinion, I have described one such consequence: It would leave
unregulated plaintiffs like Corner Post without a remedy in APA
challenges to agency rules. The Government’s position therefore
would fundamentally reshape administrative law, leaving
administrative agencies with extraordinary new power to issue rules
free from potential suits by unregulated but adversely affected
parties—businesses, environmental plaintiffs, workers, the list
goes on.

															I agree with the longstanding consensus—a
consensus based on text, history, precedent, and common sense—that
vacatur is an appropriate remedy when a federal court holds that an
agency rule is unlawful. Because vacatur remains an available
remedy under the APA, Corner Post can obtain meaningful relief if
it prevails in this lawsuit. Notes 1 A plaintiff could not challenge
the fee rule by suing to “compel agency action” that is “unlawfully
withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 5 U. S. C. §706(1). The remedy
of compelling agency action applies if an agency fails to issue a
required rule. But here, the Board issued a rule, and the question
is whether the rule set a reasonable fee cap. It would therefore
make little sense to say that the fee rule has been “withheld” or
“delayed.” Indeed, it seems that §706(1) has almost never been used
to challenge extant agency rules, as opposed to challenging the
absence of required rules. 2 See, e.g. , Hepburn Act
of 1906, ch. 3591, §5, 34 Stat. 584, 592 (courts could “enjoin, set
aside, annul, or suspend any order or requirement of ” the
Interstate Commerce Commission); Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
ch. 404, §25(a), 48 Stat. 881, 902 (authorizing courts “to affirm,
modify, and enforce or set aside [an] order” of the SEC); Federal
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, ch. 675, §701(f )(3), 52
Stat. 1040, 1055–1056 (authorizing a court to “affirm the order” of
the FDA, “or to set it aside in whole or in part, temporarily or
permanently”). 3 Most of the recent academic and
judicial discussion of this issue has addressed suits by regulated
parties. That discussion has largely missed a major piece of the
issue—suits by unregulated but adversely affected
parties. 4 Absent vacatur, the remedy for
a regulated plaintiff would not automatically extend to
other regulated parties. For example, if a district court issued an
injunction that prevents the Board from enforcing the fee rule
against one bank, the Board would still be able to enforce the fee
rule against other banks. For those other banks to obtain the same
relief, they would need to either (i) file similar APA suits and
request similar injunctions or (ii) wait and see if the fee rule is
temporarily enjoined or held unlawful by either the relevant court
of appeals or this Court. In that respect, eliminating the vacatur
remedy would delay relief for many regulated parties. That said, in
light of vertical stare decisis , the consequences for
regulated parties of eliminating vacatur would not be as severe as
the consequences for unregulated parties. See Labrador v. Poe , 601 U. S. ___, ___ (2024) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in
grant of stay) (slip op., at 8–9); cf. W. Baude & S. Bray,
Proper Parties, Proper Relief, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 153, 183 (2023)
(when the Supreme Court “holds a statute to be unconstitutional or
a rule to be unlawful, it may be as good as vacated”). 5 This opinion focuses primarily
on administrative litigation that arises under the APA. But
Congress has also enacted special statutory review provisions that
similarly authorize federal courts to “set aside” specific agency
actions. See, e . g ., 15 U. S. C. §78y(a) (orders of
the SEC); 16 U. S. C. §825 l (b) (FERC); 28 U. S. C. §2342
(the FCC, the Atomic Energy Commission, and other agencies). By
arguing that the APA’s use of “set aside” does not authorize
vacatur, the Government implies that vacatur is also unavailable
under those similar review provisions. 6 In some circumstances, usually
when a court rules that an agency must provide additional
explanation for the challenged agency action or must regulate some
entity or activity more extensively, some courts have
remanded to the agency without vacatur. Remand without vacatur is
essentially a shorthand way of vacating a rule and staying the
vacatur pending the agency’s completion of an additional required
action, such as providing additional explanation or issuing a new,
more stringent rule. I do not address that practice here, which has
been the subject of some debate. See Checkosky v. SEC , 23 F.3d 452 , 462–465 (CADC 1994) (Silberman, J.) (explaining
the practice); see also id ., at 493, n. 37 (Randolph, J.)
(noting that courts and parties alternatively may avoid any
“difficulties” associated with vacatur by “a stay of the mandate”).
Importantly for present purposes, the view that vacatur is
“ authorized by the APA is a basic proposition shared by both sides of the debate over remand without vacatur.” M.
Sohoni, The Power To Vacate a Rule, 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1121,
1178 (2020). 7 Section 703 states: “The form
of proceeding for judicial review is the special statutory review
proceeding relevant to the subject matter in a court specified by
statute or, in the absence or inadequacy thereof, any applicable
form of legal action, including actions for declaratory judgments
or writs of prohibitory or mandatory injunction or habeas corpus,
in a court of competent jurisdiction. If no special statutory
review proceeding is applicable, the action for judicial review may
be brought against the United States, the agency by its official
title, or the appropriate officer. Except to the extent that prior,
adequate, and exclusive opportunity for judicial review is provided
by law, agency action is subject to judicial review in civil or
criminal proceedings for judicial enforcement.” 8 If the problem became
sufficiently severe, the Executive Branch could always ask Congress
to limit the remedies available under the APA. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 22–1008

															_________________

															CORNER POST, INC., PETITIONER v. BOARD
OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eighth circuit

															[July 1, 2024]

															Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor
and Justice Kagan join, dissenting.

															More than half a century ago, this Court
highlighted the long-recognized “hazards inherent in attempting to
define for all purposes when a ‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues.’ ” Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States , 386 U.S.
503 , 517 (1967). Today, the majority throws that caution to the
wind and engages in the same kind of misguided reasoning about
statutory limitations periods that we have previously
admonished.

															The flawed reasoning and far-reaching results of
the Court’s ruling in this case are staggering. First, the
reasoning. The text and context of the relevant statutory
provisions plainly reveal that, for facial challenges to agency
regulations, the 6-year limitations period in 28 U. S. C. §2401(a)
starts running when the rule is published. The Court says otherwise
today, holding that the broad statutory term “accrues” requires us
to conclude that the limitations period for Administrative
Procedure Act (APA) claims runs from the time of a plaintiff ’s
injury. Never mind that this Court’s precedents tell us that the
meaning of “accrues” is context specific. Never mind that, in the
administrative-law context, limitations statutes uniformly run from
the moment of agency action. Never mind that a plaintiff ’s injury
is utterly irrelevant to a facial APA claim. According to the
Court, we must ignore all of this because, for other kinds of
claims, accrual begins at the time of a plaintiff ’s injury.

															Next, the results. The Court’s baseless
conclusion means that there is effectively no longer any
limitations period for lawsuits that challenge agency regulations
on their face. Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh
facial challenges to long-existing regulations is profoundly
destabilizing for both Government and businesses. It also allows
well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new entities
or finding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past the statutory
deadline.

															The majority refuses to accept the
straightforward, commonsense, and singularly plausible reading of
the limitations statute that Congress wrote. In doing so, the Court
wreaks havoc on Government agencies, businesses, and society at
large. I respectfully dissent.

															I

															When a claim accrues depends on the nature of
the claim. See Crown Coat , 386 U. S., at 517. So,
understanding the context in which these claims arose is
essential to determining when Congress meant for them to accrue.
The facts of this very case illustrate the absurdity of the
majority’s one-size-fits-all approach. The procedural history is
also a prime example of the gamesmanship that statutory limitations
periods are enacted to prevent.

															A

															Start with the relevant agency regulation. In
2010, Congress required the Federal Reserve Board to issue rules
for debit-card transaction fees. See 15 U. S. C.
§1693 o –2(a)(1). The Board did as Congress instructed. As
relevant here, in 2011, the Board issued Regulation II, capping
debit-card interchange fees at 21 cents per transaction plus 0.05
percent of the transaction. 76 Fed. Reg. 43420 (2011) (codified at
12 CFR §253.3(b) (2022)).

															As often happens, affected parties challenged
Regulation II almost immediately after the Board issued it Several
large trade groups sued under the APA, alleging that Regulation II
was, in several respects, arbitrary, capricious, and not in
accordance with law. NACS v. Board of Governors of
FRS , 958 F. Supp. 2d 85, 95–96 (DC 2013). Ultimately, the D. C.
Circuit rejected that challenge in relevant part. NACS v. Board of Governors of FRS , 746 F.3d 474, 477 (2014). And, a
few months after that, we denied certiorari. See 574 U.S. 1121
(2015).

															B

															Now consider the facts of this challenge. In
the majority’s telling, this is about a single “truckstop and
convenience store located in Watford City, North Dakota.” Ante, at 1.

															Not quite. Rather, two large trade groups
initially filed this action in 2021—a full decade after the Federal
Reserve Board finalized the debit-card-fee regulations at issue.
Those groups were the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association,
a “trade association that has existed since the mid-1950s,” and the
North Dakota Retail Association, another trade group. App. to Pet.
for Cert. 53. Corner Post , which had only opened its doors
in 2018, was not a party to the trade groups’ initial complaint.
The Government moved to dismiss the pleading, invoking §2401(a)’s
6-year statute of limitations. In response, the trade groups sought
leave to amend.

															It was only then that Corner Post was added as a
plaintiff. And, importantly, other than the addition of Corner
Post, the trade groups’ complaint remained practically identical to
the untimely one they had filed before. Other than a few changes of
phrasing and some newly available 2019 data, the amended complaint
alleged the same facts and sought the same relief as the original
pleading. It also included the exact same legal claims—verbatim.
The only material change to the amended complaint was the addition
of Corner Post.

															Thus, even before I analyze the statute of
limitations arguments, one can see that this case is the poster
child for the type of manipulation that the majority now
invites—new groups being brought in (or created) just to do an end
run around the statute of limitations.[ 1 ] To repeat: The claims in Corner Post’s lawsuit were not
new or in any way distinct (even in wording) from the pre-existing
and untimely claims of the trade organizations that had been around
for decades.

															This time, however, when the Government renewed
its motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs made the case all about
Corner Post. The plaintiffs argued that, because Corner Post had
not yet formed as a company when the Board issued Regulation II, it
simply could not be subjected to a 6-year limitations period that
ran from when the challenged regulation issued back in 2011. (One
wonders how a company that formed against the backdrop of a
long-settled rule could possibly be entitled to complain, or claim
injury, related to the regulatory environment in which it willingly
entered—but I digress.) Rather than accepting that the untimely
challenge remained so, Corner Post demanded a personalized,
plaintiff-specific limitations rule, giving an entity six years
from when it was first affected by a Government action to
file a facial challenge.

															The District Court rejected Corner Post’s
argument, following the lead of every court of appeals that had
ever addressed accrual of an APA facial challenge.[ 2 ] It held that the addition of Corner Post
as a plaintiff did not make a difference to the timeliness of the
business groups’ claims. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that
“when plaintiffs bring a facial challenge to a final agency action,
the right of action accrues, and the limitations period begins to
run, upon publication of the regulation.” North Dakota Retail
Assn. v. Board of Governors of FRS , 55 F. 4th 634, 641
(2022).

															II

															But here we are. Three-quarters of a century
after Congress enacted the APA, a majority of this Court rejects
the consensus view that, for facial challenges to agency rules, the
statutory 6-year limitations period runs from the publication of
the rule. Instead, it holds that an APA claim accrues “when the
plaintiff is injured by final agency action.” Ante, at 1.
The majority maintains that the text of §2401(a) demands this
result. But if that answer is so obvious, one wonders why no court
proclaimed it until more than 75 years after all the statutory
pieces were in place.

															To explain how the majority got this ruling
wrong, I find it necessary to provide the right answer. Here, the
relevant statutory text is the catchall limitations provision for
suits brought against the United States: §2401(a) of Title 28 of
the United States Code. All agree that there are two key terms in
that provision—“accrues” and “the right of action.” Ibid. The majority misreads both. Contrary to the Court’s rigid reading,
the word “accrues” lacks any fixed meaning. See Crown Coat ,
386 U. S., at 517. Instead, the meaning of accrue for the purpose
of a statute of limitations is determined by the particular “right
of action” at issue. For many kinds of legal claims, accrual is
plaintiff specific because the claims themselves are plaintiff
specific. But facial administrative-law claims are not. This means
that, in the administrative-law context, the limitations period
begins not when a plaintiff is injured, but when a rule is
finalized.

															A

															When sovereign immunity has been waived, the
Federal Government is often sued, and Congress has enacted statutes
of limitations to ensure that those lawsuits are brought in a
timely fashion. Because such suits arise in different contexts,
Congress has enacted different statutes of limitations for
different types of suits.

															Most statutes of limitations are context
specific. For example, a tort claim against the United States
typically must be brought “within two years after such claim
accrues.” 28 U. S. C. §2401(b). By contrast, a party challenging
certain administrative orders must seek review “within 60 days
after [the order’s] entry.” §2344. Many more examples of
context-specific limitations periods in the U. S. Code abound. See, e . g ., §2501 (claims over which the United States
Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction must be brought within six
years); 33 U. S. C. §1369(b)(1) (challenges to certain standards
adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean
Water Act must commence “within 120 days from the date of . . .
promulgation”).

															The statute at issue here—28 U. S. C.
§2401(a)—supplements those specific provisions. In doing so,
§2401(a) serves a special purpose: to act as a catchall that
imposes an outer time limit on claims brought against the United
States when no other statute of limitations applies. Under
§2401(a), “every civil action commenced against the United States
shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within six years
after the right of action first accrues.” This catchall limitations
statute has been applied in a range of contexts, including APA
claims (like this one), contract claims, see Crown Coat , 386
U. S., at 510–511, and more, see, e . g ., Natural
Resources Defense Council v. Haaland , 102 F. 4th 1045,
1074 (CA9 2024) (claims under the Endangered Species Act).

															Consistent with the broad scope of its potential
application, §2401(a) uses broad language. It starts the 6-year
clock when “the right of action first accrues.” §2401(a). No more
elaboration or specificity is given. So, what does the
sparse text of §2401(a) tell us?

															To start, the statute tells us to look at when
“the right of action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) The
word “first” directs us to start the clock at the earliest possible
opportunity once the claim accrues. From the text alone, then, we
know that this moment in time should happen sooner rather than
later. But when that moment occurs depends on the meaning of
both “the right of action” and “accrues.”

															Next, the provision uses the unadorned phrase
“the right of action.” Because this statute is applicable to a
broad range of causes of action against the Government, the
underlying statute (here the APA) provides “the right of action,”
not §2401(a) itself. Put another way, the §2401(a) catchall applies
to different causes of action, and those causes of action establish
different legal claims. Though the right of action is not the same
for an APA claim as it is for an Endangered Species Act claim,
§2401(a)’s broad “right of action” language applies to both of
these claims, and more.

															B

															A proper understanding of the word “accrues”
makes clear that this term is far more flexible and context
dependent than the majority appreciates. Crucially, the Court has
said this very thing before—more than once, in fact. We have long
understood that it is simply not “possible to assign the word
‘accrued’ any definite technical meaning which by itself would
enable us to say whether the statutory period begins to run at one
time or the other.” Reading Co. v. Koons , 271 U.S.
58 , 61–62 (1926); see also Crown Coat , 386 U. S., at 517
(recognizing “the hazards inherent in attempting to define for all
purposes when a ‘cause of action’ first ‘accrues’ ”).

															But, for some reason, that does not stop the
majority from trying here. Its opinion repeatedly asserts that the
ordinary meaning of accrual is that claims accrue only when a
plaintiff can sue. See ante, at 6–10.[ 3 ] But even the majority acknowledges that its
preferred definition of accrual is not universal; it is, at most,
“the ‘ standard rule’ ” that “can be displaced.” Ante, at 8 (quoting Green v. Brennan , 578 U.S. 547, 554
(2016); emphasis added).

															Far from imposing a one-size-fits-all definition
of the word “accrue,” this Court has traditionally taken a
claim-specific view: “[A] right accrues when it comes into
existence. ” United States v. Lindsay , 346 U.S.
568 , 569 (1954). For example, in McMahon v. United
States , 342 U.S.
25 (1951), we held that, under the Suits in Admiralty Act, a
claim accrued when a seaman was injured, even though he could not
yet sue at that time. See id ., at 27–28. In Crown
Coat , we held the opposite—a claim brought under 28 U. S. C.
§1346 did not accrue at the time of injury, but rather at the
moment of final administrative action, because a plaintiff could
not sue until the agency action was final. See 386 U. S., at
513–514, 517–518. The point is not that these cases all
point in one direction or the other with respect to the meaning of
accrue. Instead, our cases illustrate what this Court has expressly
stated: The term “accrued” lacks “any definite technical meaning,” Reading , 271 U. S., at 61.

															The majority nevertheless decrees today that
accrual must always be plaintiff specific— i.e., that a claim
cannot accrue until “this particular plaintiff ” can bring suit. Ante, at 14. But that is not what §2401(a) says. It does not
say that the clock starts when the plaintiff ’s right of
action first accrues; rather, §2401(a) starts the clock when
“ the right of action first accrues.” (Emphasis added.) In
other words, the limitations provision here focuses on the claim
being brought without regard for who brings it.

															The dictionary definitions on which the majority
relies further highlight this important observation. A claim
accrues, according to those definitions, “ ‘when a suit may
be maintained thereon’ ” or upon the “ ‘coming or springing into
existence of a right to sue.’ ” Ante, at 7 (emphasis
added) (first quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 37 (4th ed. 1951),
then quoting Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 15–16 (2d ed. 1948)).
Again, and notably, these dictionaries speak of a right to
sue, not the plaintiff ’s right to sue. Like §2401(a)
itself, these definitions do not support the majority’s assertion
that accrual is necessarily plaintiff specific.

															Of course, many of our cases do say that
a claim accrues when “ ‘the plaintiff has a complete and present
cause of action.’ ” E . g ., Gabelli v. SEC , 568 U.S.
442 , 448 (2013); Wallace v. Kato , 549 U.S.
384 , 388 (2007); Graham County Soil & Water Conservation
Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson , 545 U.S.
409 , 418 (2005); Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension
Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal. , 522 U.S.
192 , 201 (1997). But those statements were made in the context
of particular cases, each of which dealt with plaintiff-specific
causes of action. See, e . g ., Gabelli , 568 U.
S., at 446 (civil enforcement claim by the Securities and Exchange
Commission); Wallace , 549 U. S., at 388 (false imprisonment
and arrest claims); Graham County , 545 U. S., at 412
(retaliation claim against an employer); Bay Area Laundry ,
522 U. S., at 195 (claim alleging failure to make required payments
to employee pension funds).

															Here is what I mean by this. When a complaint
brought against a defendant asserts, “You falsely imprisoned me,”
or “You retaliated against me,” it is making a legal claim that is
specific to the particular plaintiff. But, as discussed below, it
is not similarly plaintiff specific to bring a claim saying, for
example, that a particular regulation is invalid because it
“exceeds the Board’s statutory authority,” or because the
Government “failed to consider important aspects of the problem,”
as the complaint here alleges. App. to Pet. for Cert. 80, 82. So,
while accrual may sometimes—even usually—be plaintiff specific,
that is just because underlying legal claims are often plaintiff
specific. The precedents the majority cites never say otherwise; i . e ., they do not tell us that accrual must always be plaintiff specific.

															The majority’s other hard-and-fast
distinction—between statutes of limitations and statutes of
repose—fares no better. See ante, at 9–10. The majority sets
up a dichotomy: Statutes of limitations are plaintiff-centric rules
that “ ‘require plaintiffs to pursue diligent prosecution of known
claims,’ ” while statutes of repose emphasize finality and are tied
to “ ‘the last culpable act or omission of the defendant.’ ” Ante, at 9 (quoting CTS Corp. v. Waldburger , 573 U.S.
1 , 8 (2014)). The problem is that statutes of limitations and
statutes of repose, while different, are not nearly as different as
the majority imagines. It is true that statutes of repose are
considered to be “defendant-protective.” Ante, at 10. But
the same is true of statutes of limitations. “The very purpose of a
period of limitation is that there may be, at some definitely
ascertainable period, an end to litigation.” Reading , 271 U.
S., at 65; see also Gabelli , 568 U. S., at 448 (repose is a
“ ‘basic polic[y] of all limitations provisions’ ”). In fact,
according to one of the dictionaries the majority cites,
“[s]tatutes of limitation are statutes of repose.” Black’s
Law Dictionary, at 1077 (emphasis added). The difference is that
unlike statutes of repose, statutes of limitations have more than
one purpose: they bring finality for defendants and prevent
plaintiffs from sleeping on their rights. Understanding these dual
functions sheds no light whatsoever on what to do when those
competing purposes point in different directions.[ 4 ]

															III

															Because different claims accrue at different
times, we must look to the specific types of claims that the
plaintiffs have brought and consider the context in which the
limitations period operates. “Cases under [one statute] do not
necessarily rule . . . claims” brought under another. Crown
Coat , 386 U. S., at 517. And our understanding of accrual for
limitations purposes has always been context specific. See, e . g ., Wallace , 549 U. S., at 389 (relying on
torts treatises to explain the “distinctive rule” for commencement
of limitations period for false imprisonment suits); Franconia
Associates v. United States , 536
U.S. 129 , 142–144 (2002) (citing contracts treatises to explain
that contract claims accrue at the moment of breach); Merck
& Co. v. Reynolds , 559 U.S.
633 , 644–646 (2010) (applying fraud-specific discovery rule to
determine accrual). In other words, to understand when “the right
of action” accrues under §2401(a), we must understand what the
right of action is.

															A

															The right of action that is invoked in many
administrative-law cases, including this one, is a statutory claim
that an agency has violated certain legal requirements when it took
a certain action, such that the agency’s action itself is invalid.
See, e.g., 5 U. S. C. §706(2). And Congress has repeatedly
made clear, through various statutory enactments, that in the
administrative-law context, the statute of limitations for filing a
claim that seeks to invalidate the agency action runs from the
moment of final agency action.

															Take the Administrative Orders Review Act (also
known as the Hobbs Act), for example. See 28 U. S. C. §2342. That
statute is the exclusive mechanism for reviewing certain orders
issued by over a half-dozen federal agencies. The Act requires
suits to be brought “within 60 days after [the] entry” of any final
agency order. §2344. There are many other similar statutes. In its
brief, the Government provided us with more than two dozen
statutory provisions where the limitations period starts running at
the moment of final agency action—whether that action is the
publication of a rule, or the issuance of an order, or something
else. See Brief for Respondent 15–17, and n. 4. And, as the
Government itself acknowledges, even that list is not
comprehensive. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 51 (“Candidly, we got to a
page-long footnote and stopped”).[ 5 ]

															Despite the dozens of statutes that start the
limitations period at the moment of final agency action, neither
Corner Post nor the majority identifies a single statute in the
administrative-law context—either now or before 1948—that takes any
other approach. This tells us exactly the message that Congress
might have expected courts to infer when interpreting §2401(a): For
administrative-law actions, a claim accrues at the moment of final
agency action.

															The Court says we must ignore these other
statutes because they post-date Congress’s 1948 enactment of
§2401(a). See ante, at 12–14. The majority’s reasoning is
doubly wrong. First, it is wrong on the facts. Even before 1948,
Congress consistently started limitations periods in the
administrative-law context at the moment of the last agency
action.[ 6 ] Then, as now,
Congress decided that the deadline for reviewing agency actions
should be pegged to the action under review. Second, the majority
misses the broader point: Whenever Congress imposes a deadline to
challenge an agency decision, the limitations period always starts
at the moment of the last agency action. We should pay attention to
the uniformly expressed judgment of Congress, and read §2401(a)
accordingly.

															Somehow, the majority draws the opposite
conclusion. In its view, either Congress’s consistently expressed
intention is irrelevant to what §2401(a) means, or Congress’s
failure to explicitly express that intention in the text of
§2401(a) indicates that Congress decided otherwise in this
particular statute (after all, Congress could have expressly pegged
accrual to final agency action in §2401(a) but did not do so). See ante, at 8–10. [ 7 ] But
mechanically drawing these sorts of negative inferences when
interpreting statutes can be risky. “Context counts, and it is
sometimes difficult to read much into the absence of a word that is
present elsewhere in a statute.” Bartenwerfer v. Buckley , 598 U.S. 69, 78 (2023).

															The majority’s approach overlooks relevant
context in all sorts of ways, including the fact that §2401(a) is a
catchall provision that applies to a variety of actions—that is,
the language we are interpreting here does not apply only in
the administrative-law context. It applies to every suit
against the United States not covered by another statute of
limitations. One cannot expect for Congress to have explicitly
stated that accrual in §2401(a) starts at the point of final agency
action when §2401(a) is a residual provision that also applies to
claims that do not involve agency action at all.[ 8 ]

															Frankly, it was also entirely unnecessary for
Congress to be explicit regarding its intentions. Again, in the
administrative-law context, the consistent rule is not the
plaintiff-specific accrual rule that exists in other contexts
( e.g., torts), but the rule that applies every time Congress
has ever mentioned a limitations period with respect to a suit
against an agency: The claim accrues at the moment of final agency
action. So it is no wonder that Congress did not expressly mention
this in the text of §2401(a)—it did not have to, for those who have
a basic understanding of its statutes.

															What is more, the standard accrual rule for the
administrative-law context makes perfect sense. The APA itself
focuses on the agency’s action, not on the plaintiff. Section 704
subjects certain “agency action[s]” to judicial review. Section 706
lays out the scope of judicial review. As relevant here, courts
shall “hold unlawful and set aside agency action” that is
“arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in
accordance with law.” 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A). Other subsections of
§706 likewise focus exclusively on what the agency did. Did
the agency act “in excess of statutory jurisdiction”?
§706(2)(C). Did the agency act “without observance of
procedure required by law”? §706(2)(D).

															Section 702 is not to the contrary. The majority
suggests otherwise, characterizing §702 as “equip[ping] injured
parties with a cause of action.” Ante, at 5. This is a
misleading characterization. Section 702 restricts who may
challenge agency action: only those “person[s] suffering legal
wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved
by agency action.” It is simply a limitation on who can sue. As
such, it says nothing about the cause of action that such a person
might bring, nor does it establish that an injury is an element of
the claim, as the majority mistakenly suggests.[ 9 ] And that is for good reason, since, in
administrative actions, the claim itself remains focused on the
agency. See Crown Coat , 386 U. S., at 513 (“The focus of the
court action is the validity of the administrative decision”).

															The way that courts review agency actions also
reinforces this basic observation. Courts do not look at what
happened to the plaintiff or what happened after the
rulemaking—they look only at the rule and the rulemaking process
itself. See SEC v. Chenery Corp. , 318 U.S.
80 , 95 (1943). “[T]he focal point for judicial review should be
the administrative record already in existence, not some new record
made initially in the reviewing court.” Camp v. Pitts , 411 U.S.
138 , 142 (1973) ( per curiam ). Anything that happened
after the rule’s publication (including, perhaps, some injury to a
regulated party) does not matter to an APA claim. So, the available
claims, causes of action, and evidence are the same regardless of
who brings the challenge or when they bring it.

															Again, the complaint in this case proves the
point. Before Corner Post was added as a plaintiff, the complaint
alleged that (1) Regulation II is contrary to law and exceeds the
Board’s statutory authority, and (2) Regulation II is arbitrary and
capricious. See Complaint in North Dakota Retail Assn. v. Board of Governors of FRS , No. 1:21–cv–00095 (D ND),
ECF Doc. 1, pp. 32–36. After Corner Post was added as a plaintiff,
the complaint made exactly those same two legal claims. See App. to
Pet. for Cert. 79–84. Before Corner Post was added, the
contrary-to-law claim said that the Board considered impermissible
costs and capped interchange fees in a way that was not
proportional to the specific costs of each transaction. See ECF
Doc. 1, at 32–34. After Corner Post was added, the contrary-to-law
claim said the exact same thing. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 79–81.
Before the addition of Corner Post, the arbitrary-and-capricious
claim said that the Board failed to consider certain congressional
instructions, relied on factors that Congress did not intend for it
to consider, and ran counter to evidence before the Board. See ECF
Doc. 1, at 34–36. Those claims, too, were unchanged after the
addition of Corner Post. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 82–84.

															From the pleadings filed in this case, three
observations stand out. First, these APA claims, like all APA
claims, are about what the agency itself did, so the logical point
to start the clock is the moment the agency acted. Second, the
claims that Corner Post brings are not specific to it—they are
identical to the untimely claims the coplaintiff trade groups
brought before. And, finally, although the majority puts procedural
challenges to the side—asserting that its holding does not extend
to those, see ante, at 21, n. 8—the claims in this case are procedural, so the majority’s line-drawing exercise is
meaningless.

															B

															On the matter of congressional intent, the
consistent accrual rule in the administrative-law context (the
limitations period starts running at the time of the final agency
action) is patently superior to the majority’s reading of §2401(a).
Congress enacts statutes of limitations to achieve basic policy
goals: “repose, elimination of stale claims, and certainty about a
plaintiff ’s opportunity for recovery and a defendant’s potential
liabilities.” Rotella v. Wood , 528 U.S.
549 , 555 (2000); see also Gabelli , 568 U. S., at 448.
For APA claims, where rulemakings apply to the public writ large,
repose and certainty would never exist if any and every
newly formed entity can challenge every agency regulation in
existence. Stated simply, the majority has adopted an implausible
reading of §2401(a), because, as I explain below, a
plaintiff-specific accrual rule operating in this context
undermines each of the central goals of all limitations
provisions.

															First, repose. This principle means that, at
some point, litigation must end. Under the majority’s reading of
the statute, it never will. Instead of putting a stop to things
after six years, §2401(a) now does nothing to prevent agency rules
from being forever subjected to legal challenge by newly formed
entities (or, as this case illustrates, by old entities that can
find or create new entities to graft onto their
complaint).[ 10 ]

															Second, elimination of stale claims. The
majority forces courts and agencies to parse cold administrative
records. Long after the action in question, courts may be ill
equipped to review decades-old administrative explanations.

															Last, certainty. As I explain in Part IV, infra , the majority’s approach creates uncertainty for the
Government and every entity that relies on the Government to
function. Agency rulemaking serves important “notice and
predictability purposes.” Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan
Bell Telephone Co ., 564 U.S.
50 , 69 (2011) (Scalia, J., concurring). When an administrative
agency changes its own rules, it follows specific, established
processes, so parties have some predictability about how the rules
of the road might change. But when every rule on the books can
perpetually be challenged by any new plaintiff, and is thus subject
to limitless ad hoc amendment, no policy determination can ever be
put to rest, and certainty about the rules that govern will forever
remain elusive.

															IV

															Today’s ruling is not only baseless. It is
also extraordinarily consequential. In one fell swoop, the Court
has effectively eliminated any limitations period for APA lawsuits,
despite Congress’s unmistakable policy determination to cut off
such suits within six years of the final agency action. The Court
has decided that the clock starts for limitations purposes whenever
a new regulated entity is created. This means that, from this day
forward, administrative agencies can be sued in perpetuity over
every final decision they make.

															The majority’s ruling makes legal challenges to
decades-old agency decisions fair game, even though courts of
appeals had previously applied §2401(a) to find untimely a range of
belated APA challenges. For example, a lower court rejected an APA
challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the
abortion medication mifepristone that was brought more than two
decades after the relevant agency action. See Alliance for
Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA , 78 F. 4th 210, 242 (CA5
2023). A 2008 APA challenge to a 1969 ruling by the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives implementing the Gun
Control Act was also bounced on statute of limitations grounds. See Hire Order Ltd. v. Marianos , 698 F.3d 168, 170 (CA4
2012). Other unquestionably tardy APA suits have been dismissed on
similar grounds too.[ 11 ]

															No more. After today, even the most well-settled
agency regulations can be placed on the chopping block. And please
take note: The fallout will not stop with new challenges to old
rules involving the most contentious issues of today. Any established government regulation about any issue—say,
workplace safety, toxic waste, or consumer protection—can now be
attacked by any new regulated entity within six years of the
entity’s formation. A brand new entity could pop up and challenge a
regulation that is decades old; perhaps even one that is as
old as the APA itself. No matter how entrenched, heavily relied
upon, or central to the functioning of our society a rule is, the
majority has announced open season.

															Still, in issuing its ruling in this case, the
Court seems oddly oblivious to the most foreseeable consequence of
the accrual rule it is adopting: Giving every new entity in a
regulated industry its own personal statute of limitations to
challenge longstanding regulations affects our Nation’s economy.
Why? Because administrative agencies establish the baseline rules
around which businesses and individuals order their lives. When an
agency publishes a final rule, and the period for challenging that
rule passes, people in that industry understand that the agency’s
policy choice is the law and act accordingly. They make investments
because of it. They change their practices because of it. They
enter contracts in light of it. They may not like the rule, but
they live and work with it, because that is what the Rule of Law
requires. It is profoundly destabilizing—and also acutely unfair—to
permit newcomers to bring legal challenges that can overturn
settled regulations long after the rest of the competitive
marketplace has adapted itself to the regulatory environment.

															Moreover, as I have explained, the Court’s
ruling in this case allows for every new entity to challenge any
and every rule that an agency has ever adopted. It is
extraordinarily presumptuous that an entity formed in full view of
an agency’s rules, by founders who can choose to enter the industry
or not, can demand that well-established rules of engagement be
revisited. But even setting aside those commonsense fairness
concerns, the constant churn of potential attacks on an agency’s
rules by new entrants can harm all entities in a regulated
industry. At any time, anyone can come along and potentially cause
every entity to have to adjust its whole operations manual, since
any rule (no matter how well settled) might be subject to
alteration. Indeed, the obvious need for stability in the rules
that govern an industry is precisely why a defined period for
challenging the rules was needed at all.

															Knowledgeable amici have explained that
the majority’s approach to accrual of the statute of limitations
for APA claims undermines the “[s]tability, predictability, and
consistency [that] enable[s] small businesses to survive and
thrive.” Brief for Small Business Associations as Amici
Curiae 5. And there is no question that long-term uncertainty
“hinders the ability of businesses to plan effectively.” Id., at 9. The majority’s accrual rule unnecessarily creates
“frequent, inconsistent, judicially-driven policy changes that do
not involve the sort of careful balancing envisioned in the normal
process of regulatory change.” Id., at 12. And, again, one
might think that preventing such chaos is precisely why Congress
enacted a statute of limitations in the first place.

															Seeking to minimize the fully foreseeable and
potentially devastating impact of its ruling, the majority
maintains that there is nothing to see here, because not every
lawsuit brought by a new industry upstart will win, and, at any
rate, many agency regulations are already subject to challenge. See ante, at 21. But this myopic rationalization overlooks other
significant changes that this Court has wrought this Term with
respect to the longstanding rules governing review of agency
actions. The discerning reader will know that the Court has handed
down other decisions this Term that likewise invite and enable a
wave of regulatory challenges—decisions that carry with them the
possibility that well-established agency rules will be upended in
ways that were previously unimaginable. Doctrines that were once
settled are now unsettled, and claims that lacked merit a year ago
are suddenly up for grabs.

															In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo , 603 U. S. ___ (2024), for example, the Court has
reneged on a blackletter rule of administrative law that had been
foundational for the last four decades. Id ., at ___ (slip
op., at 30). Under that prior interpretive doctrine, courts
deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes that
Congress authorized the agency to administer. Now, every legal
claim conceived of in those last four decades—and before—can
possibly be brought before courts newly unleashed from the
constraints of any such deference. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 74
(Assistant to the Solicitor General explaining that this result
“would magnify the effect of” overruling Chevron ).

															Put differently, a fixed statute of limitations,
running from the agency’s action, was one barrier to the chaotic
upending of settled agency rules; the requirement that deference be
given to an agency’s reasonable interpretations concerning its
statutory authority to issue rules was another. The Court has now
eliminated both. Any new objection to any old rule must be
entertained and determined de novo by judges who can now
apply their own unfettered judgment as to whether the rule should
be voided.

															*  *  *

															At the end of a momentous Term, this much is
clear: The tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court’s
holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has
the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal
Government. Even more to the present point, that result simply
cannot be what Congress intended when it enacted legislation that
stood up and funded federal agencies and vested them with authority
to set the ground rules for the individuals and entities that
participate in the our economy and our society. It is utterly
inconceivable that §2401(a)’s statute of limitations was meant to
permit fresh attacks on settled regulations from all new comers
forever. Yet, that is what the majority holds today.

															But Congress still has a chance to address this
absurdity and forestall the coming chaos. It can opt to correct
this Court’s mistake by clarifying that the statutes it enacts are
designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hobble
them. In particular, Congress can amend §2401(a), or enact a
specific review provision for APA claims, to state explicitly what
any such rule must mean if it is to operate as a limitations
period in this context: Regulated entities have six years from the
date of the agency action to bring a lawsuit seeking to have it
changed or invalidated; after that, facial challenges must end. By
doing this, Congress can make clear that lawsuits bringing facial
claims against agencies are not personal attack vehicles for new
entities created just for that purpose. So, while the Court has
made a mess of this pivotal statute, and the consequences are
profound, “the ball is in Congress’ court.” Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. , 550
U.S. 618 , 661 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Notes 1 If this case illustrates one
type of gamesmanship, one does not need to think hard to imagine
other examples. A cash-only business that announces its intent to
accept debit cards and thereby claiming injury from the debit-card
rule. New owners that buy out a shop, insisting that they too are
entitled to challenge the debit-card rule based on their status as
new entrants into the marketplace. It is telling that, even as the
majority says that the moment of the plaintiff ’s injury marks the
start of the limitations period for facial APA challenges, the
majority fails to describe precisely when that injury occurs in
this context. 2 The majority’s opinion says we
took this case to resolve a circuit split, suggesting that the
Sixth Circuit had reached the contrary conclusion. See ante, at 3–4. It had not. In Herr v. United States Forest
Serv. , 803 F.3d 809 (2015), the Sixth Circuit addressed accrual
in the context of an as-applied challenge after the
Government had threatened enforcement. There, the Circuit pegged
accrual to the moment of the injury allegedly caused by application
of the rule to the plaintiff, see id ., at 820, and did not
discuss whether that same accrual rule would apply to facial
challenges. Since Herr , neither the Sixth Circuit nor any
district court within it has extended Herr ’s rule to facial
challenges to final agency actions, and at least one District Court
has expressly rejected such an extension. See Linney’s Pizza,
LLC v. Board of Governors of FRS , 2023 WL 6050569, *2–*4
(ED Ky., Sept. 15, 2023). 3 The majority insists on a
single definition of “accrued,” but it cannot keep its story
straight as to what that definition is. Its opinion offers multiple
formulations, stating that a claim accrues “when it comes into
existence,” “when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of
action,” “when a suit may be maintained thereon,” and, also, “after
the plaintiff suffers the injury.” Ante, at 7–8 (internal
quotation marks omitted). These distinctions can make a
difference. 4 Here, these purposes are at
odds because repose favors starting the clock at the moment of
final agency action, whereas a plaintiff-specific limitations rule
would be targeted at a plaintiff’s injury to ensure plaintiffs
don’t sleep on their rights. In the administrative-law context, one
has to choose between those objectives; no one rule can equally
achieve both of these ends. 5 No kidding. On top of the
dozens of examples that the Government provided, there are many,
many others. See, e . g ., 5 U. S. C. §7703(b)(1)(A)
(“[A] petition to review a final order or final decision of the
[Merit Systems Protection] Board shall be filed . . . within 60
days after the Board issues notice of the final order or decision
of the Board”); 15 U. S. C. §80b–13(a) (“Any person or party
aggrieved by an order issued by the [Securities and Exchange]
Commission under this subchapter may obtain a review of such order
. . . by filing . . . within sixty days after the entry of such
order, a written petition”); 30 U. S. C. §1276(a)(2) (“Any
[covered] order or decision . . . shall be subject to judicial
review on or before 30 days from the date of such order or
decision”); 38 U. S. C. §7266(a) (“[T]o obtain review . . . of a
final decision of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, a person
adversely affected by such decision shall file a notice of appeal
with the Court within 120 days after the date on which notice of
the decision is issued”); 42 U. S. C. §405(g) (“Any individual,
after any final decision of the Commissioner of Social Security
made after a hearing to which he was a party . . . may obtain a
review of such decision by a civil action commenced within sixty
days after the mailing to him of notice of such decision”);
§1395 oo (f )(1) (“Providers shall have the right to obtain
judicial review of any final decision of the [Provider
Reimbursement Review] Board . . . by a civil action commenced
within 60 days of the date on which notice of any final decision by
the Board . . . is received”); §7607(b)(1) (“Any petition for
review under this subsection shall be filed within sixty days from
the date notice of such promulgation, approval, or action appears
in the Federal Register, except that if such petition is based
solely on grounds arising after such sixtieth day, then any
petition for review under this subsection shall be filed within
sixty days after such grounds arise”); 49 U. S. C. §1153(b)(1)
(petitions seeking review of National Transportation Safety Board
orders that relate to aviation matters “must be filed not later
than 60 days after the order is issued”). 6 See, e . g ., 42
Stat. 162 (1921) (codified at 7 U. S. C. §194(a)) (meatpackers must
appeal agency orders within 30 days after service of order); 48
Stat. 1093 (1934) (codified as amended at 47 U. S. C. §402(c))
(Federal Communications Commission orders must be challenged in
court “within twenty days after the decision complained of is
effective”); 49 Stat. 860 (1935) (codified at 16 U. S. C.
§825 l (b)) (orders issued by the Federal Power Commission
pursuant to the Public Utility Act of 1935 must be challenged in
court “within sixty days after the order of the Commission”); 49
Stat. 980 (1935) (codified at 27 U. S. C. §204(h)) (orders related
to alcohol permits must be challenged “within sixty days after the
entry of such order”); 52 Stat. 112 (1938) (codified at 15 U. S. C.
§45) (Federal Trade Commission cease-and-desist orders must be
challenged “within sixty days from the date of the service of such
order”); 52 Stat. 831 (1938) (codified at 15 U. S. C. §717r(b))
(orders issued by the Federal Power Commission pursuant to the
Natural Gas Act must be challenged in court “within sixty days
after the order of the Commission”); 52 Stat. 1053 (1938) (codified
at 21 U. S. C. §355(h)) (orders related to new drug applications
must be challenged in court “within sixty days after the entry of
such order”); 54 Stat. 501 (1940) (orders apportioning costs for
certain bridge projects must be challenged in court “within three
months after the date such order is issued”). 7 The majority criticizes my
review of congressional action in this area, but fails to
adequately explore the record itself. Ante, at 12–14. The
majority’s conclusion that the accrual rule is plaintiff specific
for APA claims is no more than ipse dixit . 8 Contra the majority, see ante, at 12, the fact that Congress could have opted
to enact a specific statutory review provision for APA claims says
nothing about how we should apply the catchall review provision
here. 9 The majority puts too much
stock in the fact that §702 references an injury: That reference
actually does no more than highlight the distinction between what
constitutes a claim and who can bring that claim. See ante, at 4–5, and n. 1. This type of distinction is commonplace in many
areas of our jurisprudence. Take, for example, the constitutional
standing doctrine, which limits eligible plaintiffs to those who
have suffered an injury in fact that is both traceable to the
defendant’s conduct and redressable in court. See FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , 602 U.S. 367, 380–385
(2024). Whether a particular plaintiff has standing to sue says
nothing about the elements of the claim itself. See Haaland v. Brackeen , 599 U.S. 255, 291 (2023) (“We do not reach the
merits of these claims because no party before the Court has
standing to raise them”). The distinction between what a claim is
and who can bring it applies with full force here. Section 702
codifies an injury requirement for bringing APA claims. Whether a
particular plaintiff was “adversely affected or aggrieved by agency
action within the meaning of a relevant statute” under §702 is a
threshold inquiry about whether she is an appropriate plaintiff; it
has no bearing on whether the agency did, in fact, act in a manner
that was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or
otherwise not in accordance with law,” §706(2). 10 The fact
that “courts entertaining later challenges often will be able to
rely on binding Supreme Court or circuit precedent,” ante, at 21, is irrelevant. What we are deciding now is how the statute
of limitations should be interpreted, and more specifically,
whether it makes sense to interpret it in a way that is
inconsistent with the purpose of such statutes. 11 See, e . g ., Alabama v. PCI Gaming Auth. , 801
F.3d 1278, 1292 (CA11 2015) (2013 challenge to Secretary of
Interior’s 1984, 1992, and 1995 decisions to take certain land into
trust for tribes); Wong v. Doar , 571 F.3d 247, 263
(CA2 2009) (2007 challenge to 1980 Medicaid regulation); Dunn-McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park
Serv. , 112 F.3d 1283 , 1286–1287 (CA5 1997) (1994 challenge to 1979
National Park Service regulations); Shiny Rock Mining Corp. v. United States , 906 F.2d 1362, 1365–1366 (CA9 1990) (1984
challenges to 1964 and 1965 land management orders).

Summary:
Here is a summary of the Supreme Court case Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:

Issue: The case considers when a claim brought under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) accrues for the purpose of the statute of limitations.

Holding: The Court held that a claim accrues when the plaintiff has the right to assert it in court, which, in the case of the APA, is when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.

Facts: Corner Post, a truck stop and convenience store, challenged the Federal Reserve Board's regulation setting a maximum interchange fee for debit card transactions, which had been in effect since 2011. Corner Post argued that the Board's interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act, which guided the regulation, was incorrect.

Procedural Posture: The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Corner Post's challenge was barred by the six-year statute of limitations, as the claim accrued when the regulation was promulgated and became final. Corner Post petitioned the Supreme Court for review.

Legal Analysis: The Court interpreted the statute of limitations for suits against the government, 28 U.S.C. §2401(a), and concluded that a claim accrues when it can first be brought in court. For APA claims, this occurs when a plaintiff is injured by final agency action. The Court rejected the argument that the claim accrued earlier, when the Board issued its interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act, as this was not a final agency action causing injury to Corner Post.

The Court also addressed the purpose of statutes of limitations, emphasizing their role in providing finality and preventing stale claims. It noted that its holding was consistent with this purpose, as plaintiffs are incentivized to bring APA claims promptly after final agency action.