Historic Montana youth climate lawsuit upheld by state Supreme Court

A youth-led climate lawsuit won another historic decision today, with the Montana Supreme Court upholding a 2023 ruling that the state must consider climate change and environmental protections in the approval process for new energy projects.

It’s the first youth-led climate lawsuit to have this level of success in the US, possibly setting precedent for others around the country.

The lawsuit, Held v. Montana, was brought by 16 Montana plaintiffs between ages 5-22, and supported by Our Children’s Trust, a law firm representing youth climate lawsuits across the country.

At issue was the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), signed by Montana Governor (and violent criminal) Greg Gianforte. MEPA explicitly disallows consideration of environmental factors in the approval process for oil and gas permits. The youth argued that this law violated their rights under the Montana state constitution, which guarantees the right to “a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.”

Judge Kathy Seeley of the First Judicial District Court of Montana first ruled in favor of the youth in 2023, holding that greenhouse gases cause significant harm to the plaintiffs, and invalidating the Montana law that stops environmental review as “unconstitutional on its face.”

The state then appealed the decision, with the support of fossil fuel companies, despite the unequivocal clarity in the Montana constitution’s guarantee of a clean and healthful environment. The Montana Attorney General’s office falsely said that Montana, home of the largest coal reserves in the US and one of the highest rates of emissions per capita in the country, can have “no meaningful impact” on the climate. This is incorrect, as coal is the dirtiest fuel humans use for power, and Montana’s emissions per capita are roughly 4x as high as California’s.

And today, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold Judge Seeley’s decision, by a 6-1 margin. So it wasn’t even close. The state’s Constitution, which explicitly calls for a healthful environment, really does require the state to aim for a healthy environment, according to the Court.

The 2023 ruling was the first ruling in favor of a youth-led climate lawsuit in the US, several of which have been proceeding through state and federal courts in recent years. In 2024, Hawaii youth won a settlement that will lead to transformation of the state’s transportation system to achieve zero emission operation for all ground transport and inter-island sea and air transport by 2045.

Some other lawsuits, though, have been prematurely dismissed by courts.

The most notable example is Juliana v. US, which argues that the federal government has violated the due process clause in depriving these youth of their rights to life, liberty, and property through environmental degradation.

This lawsuit was blocked by the 9th District Court in California in 2020 in a split 2-1 decision, ruling on the ridiculous grounds that the youth did not have standing to bring a lawsuit on these claims. Standing means that plaintiffs must show that they have suffered injury from a law in order to file a lawsuit over it.

So, despite that children and all other living things are in actual fact harmed by a declining environment, the district court still said the youth couldn’t bring the lawsuit.

The Juliana plaintiffs are continuing to try to get their case heard, and are currently appealing to the US Supreme Court – which is no stranger to bonehead opinions, and has taken a number of bizarre positions on the issue of standing lately. So we’ll have to see how that turns out.

But the Held decision today reaffirmed the first real precedent in the US, in the form of an actual ruling set by a court, stating that the rights of young people to a clean and healthful environment have been violated by law. It may be a particularly egregious law in this case, and as such there may not be quite as perfect a set of circumstances as this in other lawsuits, but nevertheless this decision could light a fire under other cases in other states.

And best yet – there’s nowhere else for the state or the oil industry to take this case. This is a state case about state law, so the US Supreme Court has nothing to do with it. It’s now final: Montana needs to respect its own law and take the environment into account, just as its Constitution says it does.

And now, this case could serve as a signal to other judges that it is indeed possible and reasonable to take a stance in favor of the best interests of the people, and in favor of constitutional law, rather than cowing to the power of the fossil fuel industry (even in a state that is largely run by it).

Great job, kids.

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