Story originally published in DeSmog

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied requests from major oil companies to intervene in climate liability lawsuits aimed at holding fossil fuel producers accountable for climate damages and alleged disinformation campaigns. The court’s denial of the industry’s petitions means that the lawsuits can advance in state courts, where companies like ExxonMobil and Shell could be forced to face trial.

“Big Oil companies have been desperate to avoid trials in state courts, where they will be forced to defend their climate lies in front of juries, and today the Supreme Court declined to bail them out,” Richard Wiles, president of the advocacy organization Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement.

More than two dozen communities across the United States have filed climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies over the past six years. Until now, the litigation has been tied up in procedural wrangling over which courts — federal or state — should handle the cases. 

Lawyers for the fossil fuel industry have tried to force the cases into federal courts, where they see an easier path to getting the lawsuits thrown out. The Supreme Court has previously ruled that the Clean Air Act displaces climate-related cases arising under federal common law, and a climate lawsuit filed in federal court by New York City in 2018 was tossed given that precedent. But federal courts that have considered the jurisdiction issue, including six different appeals courts, have unanimously decided that the cases should proceed in state courts. The industry had tried to overturn those decisions by taking the cases to the Supreme Court — but the highest federal court has now effectively shut the door by refusing to review the cases at this stage.

“This is excellent news for the plaintiffs in these climate cases,” Richard Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard University, told DeSmog. “There was a significant risk that the Court might grant review,” he said, adding that future Supreme Court petitions in other climate liability cases “are very unlikely to be granted in light of this ruling, which was in the face of a full court press from industry.”

The Supreme Court’s orders issued Monday apply to a handful of climate lawsuits, including cases brought by the city of Baltimore, the city and county of Honolulu, several coastal communities in California, and the state of Rhode Island, as well as the city and county of Boulder and the county of San Miguel in Colorado. 

In the Colorado communities’ case, the Supreme Court had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to weigh in. Last month the Solicitor General filed a brief siding with the communities’ position that the litigation belongs in state court and urging the high court to decline review. The Justices ultimately declined review, though the court’s order noted that Justice Kavanaugh “would grant the petition” in this case. Justice Alito, who owns stock in several oil companies, including ConocoPhillips and Phillips66, recused himself from consideration of the petitions in all of the climate cases.

“Every court that has reviewed this case has come to the same conclusion–that it should be heard in a local court, by a local jury. The Supreme Court’s decision today confirms that,” EarthRights General Counsel Marco Simons said in a statement. EarthRights is helping represent the Colorado communities in court against ExxonMobil and Suncor in their climate liability case that was initially filed in 2018.

Suncor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ExxonMobil spokesperson Todd Spitler said the company “will continue to fight these suits, which are a waste of time and resources and do nothing to address climate change.”

“We are confident the pending climate lawsuits in the U.S. will ultimately be dismissed,” Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, and lead counsel for Chevron in the climate liability lawsuits, said in an emailed statement. “Climate change is an issue of national and global magnitude that requires a coordinated federal policy response, not a disjointed patchwork of lawsuits in state courts across multiple states. These wasteful lawsuits in state courts will do nothing to advance global climate solutions, nothing to reduce emissions, and nothing to address climate-related impacts,” he added.

“The Shell Group’s position on climate change has been a matter of public record for decades. We agree that action is needed now on climate change, and we fully support the need for society to transition to a lower-carbon future. We continue to reduce our emissions and help customers reduce theirs as we supply vital energy the world needs today,” a Shell spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Addressing climate change requires a collaborative, society-wide approach. We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress.”

BP declined to comment.

Contrary to the industry’s characterization of the lawsuits, climate accountability advocates say the cases are about holding the industry liable for lying to the public about the climate harms of its products.

“ExxonMobil, Suncor, Chevron, Shell and other fossil fuel companies have known for decades that heat-trapping emissions from their operations and the use of their products drive climate change and its impacts, but they have continued to deceive the public and obstruct meaningful action,” said Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The decision sends a powerful message to fossil fuel companies: Evading responsibility will not be tolerated.”

With the Supreme Court’s denial of the industry’s petitions, climate liability cases brought by Boulder, Baltimore, Honolulu, and other communities are now cleared to move forward in state courts where the proceedings will focus more on the substantive claims of alleged disinformation and deception.

“This changes the calculus significantly,” Karen Sokol, professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, told DeSmog. Until now, the allegations of disinformation have not been litigated, she said, but that is about to change.
​
“Now things will become more interesting for the general public in terms of just thinking of how we got here in this stage in the climate crisis and the industry’s contributions to really polluting the information landscape,” Sokol said. “It’s important just as a matter of democratic governance to understand this sort of conduct.”

Story originally published in DeSmog

​A judge in Hawaii has cleared the way for a youth climate case challenging the state’s fossil fuel-dependent transportation system to proceed to trial. The case, which invokes the Hawaiian constitution’s environmental guarantees, will be the second climate trial based on constitutional claims in U.S. history, and the second one this year, when it goes to trial in September. 

Judge Jeffrey Crabtree of Hawaii’s First Circuit Court denied the state’s bid to dismiss the youth-led case. In a ruling issued on April 6, he noted that the youth plaintiffs “allege nothing less than that they stand to inherit a world with severe climate change and the resulting damage to our natural resources.” The ruling comes after a January 26 hearing on the state’s motion to dismiss in which more than 100 supporters of the youth plaintiffs packed the courtroom and an overflow room.

“It is reassuring to have a court acknowledge our right to hold the Transportation Department accountable for their contribution to the climate crisis,” said 19 year-old plaintiff Kalālapa Winter, whose case is represented by nonprofit law firms Our Children’s Trust and Earthjustice. “I am excited to finally get to the substance of our claims.”

The lawsuit, Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, is the first-ever constitutional climate case aimed at curbing carbon pollution from transportation systems. Winter is one of fourteen young Hawaiians who brought the case last June against the state of Hawaii, Governor David Ige, the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT), and HDOT Director Jade Butay. By continuing to operate a fossil fuel-dependent transportation system resulting in high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, the case alleges, the defendants are contributing to dangerous climate change and violating the state’s constitutional obligations to protect Hawaii’s natural resources and to ensure the right to a clean and healthful environment for all citizens. 

Transportation is the largest source of emissions in Hawaii, whose tropical islands see around 80 percent of commutes by car and have earned a reputation for traffic congestion. According to the youth complaint, citing data from the Hawaii Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report for 2017 issued in 2021, these emissions are expected to rise 41 percent this decade.

While Hawaii has enacted some of the most ambitious climate targets in the United States — including goals to reach both zero emissions and 100 percent renewable energy by 2045 — the state’s transportation department has not implemented measures aligned with these mandates or other laws addressing the state transport sector’s emissions, the case contends. The Department of Transportation has not coordinated with other agencies to implement Hawaii’s zero emissions target, nor has it planned for or supported alternative transportation options to limit emissions, such as vehicle electrification, increasing alternative transport fuels, and expanding public transport and bikeways, the lawsuit argues.

The Hawaii Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment on the case. But the state’s attorney general office, which will represent HDOT and the state in court, defended Hawaii’s climate actions.

“The Court’s ruling today merely allows the case to proceed past the pleading stage and does not decide the merits of the Plaintiffs’ allegations,” Hawaii Deputy Solicitor General Lauren Chun told DeSmog in an emailed statement. “The State of Hawaii stands behind its record as a national leader in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the State will continue to pursue its ambitious climate goals.”

The Constitutional Right to a Clean Environment

The Hawaiian youth claim that the state has violated its legal duty to preserve the natural environment under the state constitution and the public trust, a legal doctrine requiring the government to protect certain resources for public enjoyment and benefit. Hawaii’s constitution explicitly recognizes this obligation with two provisions. One says the state must “conserve and protect Hawaii’s natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources” and do so “for the benefit of present and future generations.” Another provision guarantees “the right to a clean and healthful environment” and allows for enforcement of the right through legal means. The Hawaii Supreme Court has recognized, including in a ruling just last month, that this right includes the right to a “life-sustaining climate system.”

A federal judge in Oregon has also affirmed this fundamental right to a stable climate. “I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society,” U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken wrote in a 2016 order in the federal youth constitutional climate case Juliana v. United States. Such a right is not, however, expressly recognized in U.S. law, and only a handful of states have included the right to a clean and healthful environment in their constitutions. Hawaii is one of them. Montana also has this constitutional right, which youth plaintiffs will soon be testing as their climate case goes to trial this June. 

While other youth-led climate cases at the state level have so far failed to proceed to trial, the cases in Montana and now Hawaii will make history as the first youth-led constitutional climate trials ever to be held in the United States. The fact that climate trials are advancing in these two states that both have constitutional guarantees to a clean and healthful environment might not be a coincidence.

“Having an express right to a clean environment in the state constitution seems to make all the difference,” Michael Gerrard, the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, told DeSmog. “Our Children’s Trust has brought more than 20 [youth climate] suits, but these will be the first to go to trial. It’s much more persuasive when the plaintiffs can point to explicit language in the state constitution and don’t have to ask the court to infer a constitutional right.”

The trial in the Hawaii case is slated to start on September 26 of this year.

The stakes for climate trials like these are not just philosophical. Kaliko T., one of the younger plaintiffs in the lawsuit, already has felt firsthand the effects of a destabilizing climate. In 2018, Tropical Storm Olivia’s heavy rainfall caused flash flooding that destroyed her family’s home, an extreme weather occurrence expected to become increasingly common in Hawaii under climate change projections.
​
“I am glad that my story is helping to advance climate action in Hawaiʻi. I don’t want anyone else to suffer the way I and my family have,” she said in a statement.

Story originally published in DeSmog

​Two historic developments last week are putting the climate crisis squarely on the docket of some of the world’s highest courts. On March 29, an international human rights court in Europe held a pair of hearings addressing government responsibility on climate change for the first time. That same day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice to weigh in on nations’ legal obligations to ensure protection of the climate system. 

The outcomes of the proceedings, experts say, could significantly advance climate justice and accountability as well as clarify the requirements under international law for governments to curb climate breakdown.

The two cases argued before the European Court of Human Rights on March 29 accuse the governments of Switzerland and France of failing to take sufficient measures to fight climate change and protect citizens from worsening climate impacts, such as extreme heat and flooding. The alleged failings contribute to mounting risks to human life and health in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, the cases claim.

In the first climate case ever to be heard by the European court, located in Strasbourg, France, lawyers representing more than 2,000 elderly Swiss women highlighted the urgency and immense peril the climate crisis presents, and argued that Switzerland is not doing its “fair share” to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

“There is no time left. Dangerous climate change is with us all,” Marc Willers, a lawyer with the UK-based firm Garden Court Chambers, said during the hearing. He explained what would constitute Switzerland’s allowable level of emissions, as calculated by independent scientific experts, under the world’s remaining carbon budget — the amount of carbon dioxide that can still be emitted for temperature rise to stay below a given threshold, such as 1.5°C. Under current policies, Switzerland is expected to use up its share of this global budget by 2034 and then will be taking away from other countries’ shares. “This is carbon theft,” Willers said.

The case, Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, is brought by an association called Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland and four individual elders. It argues that senior citizens, particularly women, are at heightened risk of severe health impacts, including death, from extreme heat events that are occurring more frequently as Earth warms. The senior women say that Switzerland’s inadequate climate policy leaves them exposed to more lethal heatwaves, in breach of their right to life and to family and private life under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Swiss domestic courts had previously dismissed the case, finding that elderly women are not uniquely harmed by climate change and that rights had not yet been violated. 

Swiss government representatives said the Strasbourg court should similarly find the case “inadmissible” or alternatively find that no human rights violations have occurred. They defended Switzerland’s climate policy at the hearing and claimed that the state is “already doing what is expected in terms of climate protection.”

Should the European Court of Human Rights reject the government’s claims and rule favorably for the Swiss women, it “could set an important legal precedent” according to Katharina Rall, senior researcher in environment and human rights at Human Rights Watch. “This case could play an important role in holding governments to account for their inaction on climate change,” Rall wrote in a recent piece reflecting on the hearing.

Following the Swiss case, the court’s Grand Chamber panel of 17 judges next heard arguments in the case Carême v. France. Brought by the former mayor of the French coastal community of Grande-Synthe, the case challenges France’s climate policy and seeks to force the government to implement more stringent emissions reduction measures. The plaintiff Damien Carême argues that he is personally affected by France’s climate response, as his home community is at severe risk of climate-induced flooding.

The court’s Grand Chamber is slated to hear a third climate lawsuit — a case brought by six Portuguese youth against 33 European states — later this year. These three leading cases will result in judgments in which Europe’s highest human rights court will for the first time have to grapple with governments’ responsibility to safeguard human rights in the context of climate change. Rulings on the cases are expected at the end of this year at the earliest.  

World Court to Examine Questions of Climate Justice

On the same day the European court heard its first climate cases, the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York and adopted by consensus a resolution seeking clarification on countries’ legal obligations concerning climate change. The resolution requests that the International Court of Justice produce an advisory opinion on the questions of states’ legal obligations to protect the climate system and the legal consequences of failing to uphold these obligations, particularly with respect to the effects on small island developing states and to present and future generations.

The Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu spearheaded the resolution, backed by more than 130 nations as co-sponsors. Law students at the University of South Pacific in Vanuatu first proposed the idea to bring the issue of climate justice to the world’s highest court in 2019. Vanuatu’s government embraced the initiative and led an international coalition to drum up support for an official UN resolution on the matter. With the resolution’s adoption last week, legal proceedings are expected to begin in the coming months at the International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, Netherlands. These proceedings will include written statements and oral hearings, resulting in a formal opinion issued by the court.

Although not legally binding, the court’s advisory opinions can be influential in terms of clarifying questions under international law. This opinion could help strengthen climate litigation and push states to adopt more ambitious climate policies.

“The ICJ’s advisory opinion would help motivate nations to increase their climate ambitions to align as closely as possible to global temperature targets,” said Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The ICJ’s ruling will have far-reaching impacts on how communities across the world are able to fight for climate justice,” she added, “including reinforcing the underlying legal rationale for thousands of climate litigation cases currently filed in local, state, national, and international courts.”
​
Human rights organizations hailed the UN’s adoption of the resolution as a critical step in the fight for climate justice. Amnesty International referred to it as a “landmark moment” while Human Rights Watch said it is a “milestone in defining the human rights obligations of governments.”

For the first time, an international human rights court in Europe held a pair of hearings on cases seeking to hold governments accountable for their role in contributing to the climate crisis and allegedly failing to protect citizens from worsening climate impacts such as extreme heat and flooding. The two climate cases argued before the European Court of Human Rights on March 29 could set a precedent in establishing states’ obligations to take more ambitious climate action in order to safeguard human rights under European law.
 
The European Court of Human Rights, located in Strasbourg, France, currently has a handful of climate lawsuits pending before it that challenge government policy or conduct in the context of the climate emergency. Two of those cases came before the court’s Grand Chamber panel of 17 judges last week and a third case is set to be heard by the same panel later this year. These leading cases will render judgements in which the court will grapple with the impacts of climate change on human rights and determine whether breaches of rights have occurred stemming from European states’ alleged failure to effectively mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
 
In the first cases to come before the court on March 29, the climate ambitions and actions of the governments of Switzerland and France are at issue, charged by the plaintiffs (or applicants in this context) to be woefully inadequate. Both cases claim that this inadequate climate action amounts to violations of the rights to life and to family and private life under Articles 2 and 8, respectively, of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, heard first by the Grand Chamber panel, contends that Switzerland’s failure to do its “fair share” to reduce emissions in line with limiting temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C threatens the lives and health of elderly women who are more vulnerable to extreme heat spells. An association of Swiss senior women with over 2,000 members, along four individual elderly women, are the applicants behind this case. In the second lawsuit heard by the court, Carême v. France, the applicant is an individual claiming to be personally affected by the level of climate mitigation undertaken by the French government, as the coastal community that he calls home is at risk of severe flooding and inundation from rising seas. In both cases the applicants argue the state should be doing more to slash emissions and mitigate dangerous warming. The respondent governments defended their climate policy during the hearings, insisting that their climate commitments are sufficient to be protective of citizens’ rights.
 
 
First Up: The Swiss Case
 
The KlimaSeniorinnen lawsuit, lodged with the Strasbourg court in November 2020, seeks to compel Switzerland to reassess its climate targets and take more protective measures to safeguard individuals, particularly the elderly, who are already experiencing adverse health effects as warming intensifies. The complaint asserts violations of Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the case before the European Court of Human Rights also claims breaches of the applicants’ procedural rights, including access to a court and to an effective remedy. The Swiss domestic courts dismissed the case without properly considering the merits, the applicants say, determining that the senior women are not special “victims” of climate change and that their rights had not yet been violated.
 
These determinations were erroneous, the counsel for the Swiss senior women told the Grand Chamber panel. “The Swiss courts refused to determine the applicants’ claims, finding there was still time before the Paris Agreement’s temperature thresholds would be breached,” Jessica Simor, counsel for the applicants, said during her presentation at the hearing. “To suggest that until one reaches the moment of catastrophe one’s rights are not affected is to ignore the reality,” she argued, adding: “The applicants before you today are already suffering from the effects of climate change.”

Simor explained how the intensifying impacts of extreme heat events pose serious threats to elderly women’s health and to their very existence, noting that these heat extremes are occurring more frequently and are projected to worsen as the climate crisis continues.
 
Anne Mahrer, co-president of Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland, said that judicial intervention is necessary because “Switzerland is doing far too little to contain the climate catastrophe. Rising temperatures are already having serious impacts on our physical and mental health. The big spike in heat waves is making us older women sick.”
 
It even poses life-threatening risks especially to the elderly, as people become less capable of regulating internal body temperature as they age. “No one before this court disputes that heat kills,” Simor said, noting that “women over 65 are at real risk of not only serious mental or physical impairment, but of death.”
 
Counsel for the Swiss senior women argued that these impacts and risks can be linked to Switzerland’s allegedly ineffective climate mitigation measures. They say that failing to undertake only the most ambitious climate action, and what scientific experts have calculated as each state’s “fair share” of emissions reduction, exacerbates the climate crisis and contributes to the collective risk of the world overshooting the 1.5°C or even 2°C warming thresholds, where many adverse impacts become compounded and irreversible.
 
“Every increment of global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards,” Simor said, citing the latest summary report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released on March 20. This scientific finding weakens the defense that emissions from any single state or actor is relatively insignificant on a global scale, counsel for the applicants maintain.
 
The hearing discussed Switzerland’s climate policies and targets, with the applicants’ counsel claiming they fall far short of what is necessary for the state to do its fair share in the global climate fight. According to Simor, expert scientific assessments have calculated what each state’s fair share of emissions reduction should be, based on the remaining ‘carbon budget’ and accounting for historical responsibility and current capabilities – for Switzerland, it is calculated at up to 200 percent emissions reduction (below 1990 levels) by 2030, meaning some of that reduction would entail assisting other nations in decarbonizing. Although Switzerland has increased its domestic 2030 climate target, it has not taken legislative effect and the current policies are “insufficient” to be compatible with the Paris Agreement objectives, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent climate policy assessment initiative. 
 
The Swiss government disputed the claim that it is failing to take adequate action on climate. “The Swiss government is fulfilling its duty to afford protection of the applicants’ rights,” Franz Perrez, the Swiss ambassador for the environment and chief negotiator for Switzerland at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, argued at the hearing. He asserted that Switzerland is complying with “all obligations under the Paris Agreement” and contended that there is no internationally established objective criteria to determine what constitutes a country’s “fair share” of emissions reduction.  
 
Another Swiss government representative, Alain Chablais, offered several reasons for the court to reject the applicants’ case. Climate and environmental policymaking must be a democratic process and is not suitable for judicial review, he claimed. He also argued that a direct causal connection cannot be established between the government’s conduct and the alleged climate-related harm, and said that there is no immediate risk to the applicants’ lives.
 
The government of Ireland is one of the European states backing Switzerland’s position as a third-party intervenor in the case. Catherine Donnelly, a lawyer for Ireland, presented during the hearing claiming that the case unjustifiably extends the scope of the European Convention on Human Rights and that a positive judgment would bypass the democratic political process and upset the international regime on climate governance.
 
A lawyer for the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions, which is intervening in support of the applicants, said that those claims are wrong. Scrutiny of a state’s emissions reduction would strengthen democracy and would indeed be consistent with international law, argued Jenny Sandvig, counsel for the Network. “Courts worldwide confirm that states may be held accountable for harm caused in its territories by climate change, because any reduction in emissions matters,” she said.
  
The Carême Case
 
In the afternoon hearing on March 29, the Grand Chamber panel listened to presentations from the French government and from the lawyer representing the plaintiff or applicant, Mr. Damien Carême, who is likewise suing the state for allegedly failing to take adequate climate protection measures. Carême initially brought his legal challenge before a French court as the mayor of a coastal community called Grande-Synthe that is at severe risk of flooding. The French court – the Conseil d’État – dismissed his personal interest in the case but upheld the community’s right to sue the state, and ultimately ordered the French state to take additional measures to ensure it would comply with its 2030 emissions reduction target – a 40% cut in emissions.
 
Carême took his case to the European Court of Human Rights seeking to compel France to take more aggressive mitigation measures, and claiming that he is personally impacted by climate change as he expects his home community to be compromised by climate-induced flooding. His health is also impacted as he suffers from asthma.
 
Diégo Colas represented the French government at the hearing and argued that the flood risk is too remote and general to constitute violations of rights. He additionally claimed that France is taking appropriate climate action and that the Paris Agreement does not indicate how to calculate a “fair share” of emissions reductions.
 
But according to Corinne Lepage, a lawyer representing Carême, measures taken by the government “remain insufficient to meet even the inadequate climate target of 40 percent emissions reduction by 2030.”
 
Several of the Grand Chamber judges asked questions about Carême’s current residency. In responding, Lepage clarified that her client now lives in Brussels, Belgium while he serves on the European Parliament. But she said that he remains deeply connected to Grande-Synthe with close family ties there and that he expects to return as a resident in the future.
 
 The Grand Chamber said it will issue a decision on the cases at a later date.

Story originally published in DeSmog

Montana has repealed its 30-year-old energy policy – including a 2011 amendment that prioritized fossil-fuel development. The move comes as a June trial date approaches for a youth-led climate lawsuit against the state.

In the lawsuit, Held v. State of Montana, sixteen Montana children and teenagers say that by actively promoting a fossil-fuel based energy system that is dangerous to the climate, state officials are violating the “right to a clean and healthful environment” for present and future generations under the state Constitution. It is the first constitutional climate case to go to trial in the United States.

Montana first enacted a state energy policy in 1993. Since then, it has periodically revised and updated the statute. In 2011 the state legislature amended the policy to add provisions calling for increased fossil fuel development, along with references to developing other energy resources and technologies like wind, green hydrogen, and batteries.

Additionally, the 2011 legislature added a provision to the Montana Environmental Policy Act that prohibited environmental reviews of state-sponsored projects, including energy development, from considering impacts beyond state borders.

The youth-led lawsuit against the state challenges both provisions, claiming they explicitly promote fossil fuels while restricting the state from considering how coal, oil, or gas development contribute to the global climate crisis.

For now, the legislature has left standing the 2011 provision to the Montana Environmental Policy Act that limits environmental reviews of major actions, such as energy project permits, to considering impacts only within Montana’s borders. The youth lawsuit charges that this provision amounts to a “climate change exception.”

“The state relies on that provision to ignore the climate impacts of fossil fuel projects,” said Nate Bellinger, an attorney for the youth plaintiffs. “You have these two things working together – an explicit or implicit policy of approving fossil fuel projects while at the same time ignoring the climate impacts of those projects. So that’s the state system we’re challenging as unconstitutional.”

A Convenient Repeal

In early January, Montana Republican Rep. Steve Gunderson introduced legislation to repeal the state energy policy. The bill easily passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate, with no Democratic support. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed it into law on March 16.

At a House committee hearing on the bill in January, Michael Freeman, a natural resources policy advisor to Gianforte, told lawmakers that the state would still have an energy policy after the repeal.

“The proposed legislation here does not conflict with the energy policy and in fact it helps clarify Montana’s energy policy,” Freeman told the Montana House Energy, Technology, and Federal Relations Committee. “From the governor’s perspective we do have an energy policy, it is an all of the above energy policy.”
Gunderson claimed that the repeal was intended to “[follow] the governor’s red tape reduction plan in that it removes a bloated bag of air that only takes up space” in state law. “It says nothing, it does nothing, and it has no teeth.”

Neither Freeman nor Gunderson responded to DeSmog’s requests for comment on the intent behind the bill.
Bellinger thinks the repeal of the state’s energy policy was a response to the youth climate case.

“The state has fought this lawsuit for three years now and tried to get it dismissed multiple times,” said Bellinger, the senior staff attorney with Our Children’s Trust, a non-profit law firm that has represented children in a number of climate cases around the country. “I think they’re concerned about the evidence that will come out,” he said, referring to Montana’s proactive support for fossil fuels.

In a recent court filing, an expert witness for the youth plaintiffs stated that she also suspected that the repeal was an attempt to take a swipe at the lawsuit.

“My immediate reaction was, this is being done to undermine Held v. State of Montana,” Anne Hedges, director of policy and legislative affairs at the nonprofit advocacy organization Montana Environmental Information Center, wrote in a declaration filed with the court in February.

“I believe that the reason Governor Gianforte is pushing the repeal of [the state’s energy policy] is to try and undermine this case so that Defendants can continue their conduct without any constitutional oversight. I do not believe that it will result in less fossil fuel permitting in Montana,” Hedges further stated in her declaration.

Pat Parenteau, emeritus professor of law and senior fellow for climate policy at the Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Environmental Law Center, told DeSmog he expects the Montana attorney general will argue at trial that the repeal “moots” or nullifies the case’s challenge to the state energy policy.

Montana’s Alliance with Fossil Fuels
​
The youth plaintiffs and their expert witnesses contend that Montana has a long history of permitting and prioritizing coal, oil and gas development. Montana is home to part of the Bakken oil and gas shale formation and contains the largest recoverable coal reserves in the U.S. Coal still accounts for almost half of the state’s electricity, and there are six coal mines that continue to operate in the state.

In her February filing, Hedges referenced her own expert report to the court in September 2022, in which she noted that no Montana state agency has ever denied an environmental permit to a fossil fuel company. Her report included evidence of what she described as the state’s “longstanding practice of collaborating with the fossil fuel industry to permit fossil fuel projects.”

Montana also has an established record of promoting and defending fossil fuels. In 2012, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality authorized the Montana portion of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. And in 2019, Montana along with North Dakota sent a petition to federal regulators seeking to invalidate a Washington law regulating volatile crude oil by rail.

The latest example is a lawsuit filed in February by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen against the city of Portland, Oregon for its ban on expansion of fossil fuel storage facilities as well as new fuel transport infrastructure, such as gas export terminals. Montana alleges that the ban has restricted the state’s ability to access international markets for its fossil fuel products. Several oil and gas groups, such as the Western Energy Alliance, have joined Montana in the suit.

Some state lawmakers have close ties to the fossil fuel industry. State Rep. Gary Parry, a current member of the House Natural Resources Committee, used to work in the coal industry, as did recently retired state senator Duane Ankney. Ryan Zinke, the U.S. representative for Montana’s 1st congressional district, facilitated oil and gas development on federal public lands while Secretary of the Interior during the Trump administration. Zinke was also on the board of oil pipeline company QS Energy from 2012 to 2015.

The current head of the Montana Petroleum Association, Alan Olson, served in the state legislature for 14 years as a representative and senator. In late January, Olson testified to the State Senate in support of the energy policy repeal.

First Constitutional Climate Trial in US History

The Held v. State of Montana case is scheduled for trial June 12 – 23 at the First Judicial District Court in Helena, Montana. The youth plaintiffs seek a court declaration that the state’s promotion of fossil fuels is unconstitutional.

The case was initially filed in March 2020 on behalf of sixteen Montana youths ranging in age from 2 to 18 years. Defendants include the state of Montana, then-Gov. Steve Bullock, and several agencies including the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the Montana Department of Transportation, and the Montana Public Service Commission.

In response to DeSmog’s request for comment, representatives of the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and the Public Service Commission said that they do not comment on pending or ongoing litigation. The governor’s office did not respond.

The case is the first climate-related constitutional challenge to government conduct to make it to trial in the U.S. State courts have so far dismissed other youth climate cases during pre-trial proceedings.
In January 2020, a federal youth climate lawsuit targeting the federal government, Juliana v. U.S., was ultimately dismissed before the trial could take place. That case is currently awaiting a decision on a revised complaint that could put it back on the path to trial.

The Montana case could be a game changer in terms of setting a legal precedent that government support of fossil fuels is unconstitutional. At a December webinar, Mat dos Santos, general counsel at Our Children’s Trust, said that the lawsuit “is not just about Montana. It’s really about the climate here in the United States and around the world.”

A victory in Montana would be a “watershed moment” leading to a “cascade of legal victories around the country,” dos Santos claimed, and would likely have global implications.
The upcoming trial may expose Montana’s preferential treatment of fossil fuels during a time of climate emergency, when the world’s top climate scientists warn that reigning in dangerous greenhouse gas emissions requires a “substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use.”

“This is a case about protecting plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, and those rights don’t depend upon any elections or actions the legislature takes,” said attorney Bellinger. “That’s why it’s so important that this case is going to trial and it doesn’t really matter what the legislature does between now and then.”