A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit challenging a key component of President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss of the District of Columbia ruled that two advocacy groups and a labor union do not have standing to bring their lawsuit challenging the president's “1-in-2-out” executive order, issued in January 2017. The order requires federal agencies to repeal two regulations for every new regulation issued, and imposes other requirements including an annual regulatory cap on costs associated with new regulations.

The plaintiffs—Public Citizen, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Communications Workers of America union—argued they had standing to bring the lawsuit because certain regulatory actions that could protect their members would likely be delayed as a result of the order.

Moss wrote that for some of those actions, the groups failed to identify which members would be harmed. For others, it's unclear the agency would have issued the rule even without the executive order.

The groups also argued they had organizational standing because the order had a chilling effect on their efforts to encourage agencies to issue certain regulations. Moss wrote that was not “sufficient” to show organizational standing.

However, Moss entertained the possibility that plaintiffs may be able to show standing in the future.

“This is not to say that a plaintiff—or, indeed, that the present plaintiffs—will never be able to establish standing to challenge the executive order,” Moss wrote. “On the present record, however, the court must conclude that it lacks jurisdiction.”

Moss' ruling does not appear to end the case quite yet. The judge wrote that he would hold off on issuing a final order, noting that it's possible the plaintiffs could request to amend their complaint. The judge set a status conference in the case for Thursday at 10:30 a.m. to discuss “appropriate next steps.”

In a statement, Public Citizen president Robert Weissman said the harm to the organization's members is real, despite the judge's opinion.

“President Trump's deregulatory executive order aims to empower big business to pollute, cheat, rip off, endanger, discriminate and price gouge free from governmental restrictions,” Weissman said. “Unfortunately, the court concluded that Public Citizen and colleague groups did not have standing to challenge the order at this time. But our members are being hurt right now by Trump's order, and the order is impeding our ability to advocate.”

On the merits, the groups argued the president did not have the authority to issue the executive order, which they said is inconsistent with various statutes that govern federal agencies. Moss did not reach those arguments in his opinion.

The 2-for-1 order, as it's been called, has been heralded by business groups and conservatives as a way to eliminate burdensome restrictions and costs. White House counsel Don McGahn referenced the order in a discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. McGahn said the ratio of regulations rescinded to those imposed has actually been “22-to-one” under the Trump administration.

“It's been wildly successful,” McGahn said. “We're very proud of that.”