Sixteen young Montanans just delivered a profound blow to the fossil fuel industry and its enablers in the Republican Party.
In response to a lawsuit brought by young people (ages five through 22), a state court in Montana today ruled that the state’s s Energy Policy Act, which “forbids the State and its agents from considering the impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or climate change in their environmental reviews,” violates Montana’s constitution. Specifically, that it violates the state constitution’s guarantee that Montana residents have a right to a “clean and healthful environment.”
As reported by Kate Selig for the Washington Post, the decision has national implications as similar suits by or on behalf of young people have been brought in multiple states.
In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels.
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The win, experts say, could energize the environmental movement and reshape climate litigation across the country, ushering in a wave of cases aimed at advancing action on climate change.
As Selig reports, the young plaintiffs provided testimony explaining how the effects of climate change have adversely affected their own lives. For example, one 15-year-old testified how the impact of wildfire smoke exacerbated his asthma, while another plaintiff described how “extreme weather has hurt her family’s ranch.” Interestingly, the state did not contest the reality of climate change (as many had expected) but instead argued that Montana, which (as Selig points out) boasts the nation’s largest recoverable coal reserves, had minimal, if any, impact on global greenhouse emissions. The state also argued that the issue was properly within the purview of Montana’s Republican “supermajority” in the legislature.
But as noted by Dharna Noor, reporting on the decision for The Guardian, that Republican legislature’s actions were the impetus for the suit in the first place. Significantly, Judge Kathy Seeley, writing for the Montana First Judicial District Court, rejected the state’s argument.
Among the policies the challengers targeted: a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act barring the state from considering how its energy economy climate change impacts. In 2011, the legislature amended the law to prevent environmental reviews from considering “regional, national or global” environmental impacts – a provision the original complaint called the “climate change exception”.
This year, state lawmakers amended the provision to specifically ban the state from considering greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews for new energy projects. The state’s attorneys said that should have rendered the lawsuit moot, but Seeley rejected the argument.
Judge Seeley’s 103-page order is an impressive exercise in meticulous detail, but its import is effectively captured in one paragraph towards the very end:
7. Plaintiffs have a fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system.
Unsurprisingly, the state disagrees and plans to appeal. A spokesman for Montana’s Republican attorney general, Austin Knudsen, heaped disdain on the judge, the case, and by extension the young people who brought it, calling the court’s ruling “absurd” and declaring the judge had “bent over backward” to “earn herself a spot in their next documentary.”
But the implications of the decision are expected to prompt other courts to give more credence to claims of young people, who stand to suffer the most from the reckless disregard of many among their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. As Selig notes, another case, titled Juliana v. United States, is currently awaiting trial. That litigation, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, “took aim at the federal government, alleging that it had violated the 21 youths’ rights to life, liberty and property, as well as failed to protect public trust resources, in taking actions that contribute to climate change.”
See also this post from MTMofo.