Yves here. I am not certain how much precedential value this climate litigation victory will carry. The “right to a stable climate system” does not sound like a generally tenable position absent laws that contain language along those lines, but it appears the Montana constitution contains pro-environment language that supports this stance. Regardless, this success in beating back a challenge to a trial court ruling is a big deal psychologically and as a sign of the times. Supreme courts are often tasked with figuring out how to apply the law in new or changing circumstances, and shifts in prevailing values regularly influence how they weigh their decisions. Perhaps readers can inform me otherwise, but Montana seems an unexpected place for this sort of breakthrough. It’s a conservative state and one would therefore assume business and individual “freedom” favoring. And generally, courts tend to be unfriendly to individuals suing governmental bodies.
Originally published at The New Lede
The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a trial court ruling in a youth-led case against the Montana state government, affirming that the sixteen young plaintiffs have a right to a “stable climate system.” The decision marks what legal observers say is a landmark achievement in US climate litigation that is likely to inspire more lawsuits seeking to hold governments accountable for climate change harms in the US and around the world.
In the 6-1 decision today, the court ruled against the state in its appeal of District Judge Kathy Seeley’s Aug. 14, 2023 verdict in Held et al. v. State of Montana, which went to trial in June 2023. Seeley found that a pair of state laws effectively shielding fossil fuel projects from public scrutiny over their climate impacts, and from judicial review of those impacts under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), violate the state’s constitution, including the right to a clean and healthful environment. That environmental right includes the climate system, Seeley determined, and every additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuels – including from projects like coal mine expansion authorized by Montana regulatory agencies – exacerbates climate change damages and harms to Montana’s environment and the youth plaintiffs.
“This is a monumental moment for Montana, our youth, and the future of our planet,” Nate Bellinger, lead counsel for plaintiffs and a senior attorney with the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement. “Today, the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional rights of youth to a safe and livable climate, confirming that the future of our children cannot be sacrificed for fossil fuel interests,”
“This ruling is a victory not just for us, but for every young person whose future is threatened by climate change,” saidlead plaintiff Rikki Held.
The Montana Supreme Court, which heard the case on appeal in July, ultimately rejected the state’s argument that the plaintiffs lacked the legal grounds to have their case heard in court in the first place. The statute at issue on appeal, which Seeley referred to as the “MEPA limitation”, prohibited consideration of climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions during project permitting. The state argued that declaring this statute unconstitutional would not affect their fossil fuel permitting decisions and therefore would not reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate harm to the youth plaintiffs.
But in affirming the trial court’s judgment, the state supreme court agreed that this policy, enacted in 2023 by the Republican-controlled state legislature, violated the Montana constitution’s guarantee of the right to a “clean and healthful environment.”
“[Plaintiffs] showed that the State’s policies, including the MEPA Limitation…impacts their right by prohibiting an analysis of [greenhouse gas] emissions, which blindfolded the State, its agencies, the public, and permittees,” Chief Justice Mike McGrath wrote in the court’s majority opinion.
A spokesperson for the Montana attorney general office called the court’s decision “disappointing, but not surprising.”
“The majority of the state Supreme Court justices yet again ruled in favor of their ideologically aligned allies and ignored the fact that Montana has no power to impact the climate,” Chase Scheur, press secretary for Attorney General Austin Knudsen, said in an emailed statement.
A Historic Climate Lawsuit
The Held case, initially brought in 2020 by sixteen young Montanans, was the first-ever youth climate lawsuit to go to trial in the US. The trial court’s decision in favor of youth plaintiffs marked the first time in US history that a court held government officials accountable on constitutional grounds for policies contributing to the climate crisis. It was, according to Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, the “strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court.”
By upholding that decision, the Montana Supreme Court has cemented what legal observers say is a historic victory for youth climate activists that may have ripple effects far beyond Montana.
“This decision strongly upholds the landmark trial court decision that the environmental rights provisions of the Montana state constitution cover climate change, and that state laws ignoring climate change are unconstitutional,” Gerrard said via email. “This decision will be cited globally in jurisdictions (including several U.S. states) where there are similar constitutional provisions.”
Spearheaded by Our Children’s Trust, youth-led climate lawsuits against governments at the state and federal levels in the US have faced an uphill battle, with courts deciding to shut down most cases before they can get to trial. Earlier this year, a federal appeals court granted a US Department of Justice request to block a landmark climate suit against the US government from proceeding to trial, explicitly ordering a trial court judge in Oregon to dismiss the case. Lawyers for the youth plaintiffs are now turning to the US Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to revive the case.
In addition to their breakthrough victory in the Montana case, Our Children’s Trust notched another rare win this year when a youth lawsuit filed against the Hawaii Department of Transportation ended in a landmark settlement agreementon the eve of trial. The agreement sets the Hawaiian transportation sector on a pathway towards decarbonization and also affirms the right to a healthy environment as enshrined in the Hawaiian constitution, with the court recognizing that this right includes the right to a stable climate system. Following Seeley’s ruling in Montana, this marked the second time that a US court has found that such an environmental right encompasses the climate system.
Other youth climate cases have been filed and are currently pending in Virginia, Utah, Alaska, Florida, and at the federal level against the US EPA.
The youth activists’ victory in Montana, now upheld by the state’s highest court, paves the way for more constitutional climate lawsuits to be brought in more states, said Patrick Parenteau, professor of law emeritus and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
“We hope this decision inspires others across the country and beyond to stand up for their rights to a livable climate,” plaintiff Kian Tanner said in a statement. “The eyes of the world are now on us, seeing how youth-driven legal action can create real change.”
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One thing we do have in Montana is a good constitution. Written in the 1970s, it’s waaay more progressive than most. We’ve got a right to privacy here, too!
Cool. To me it seems that libertarians and big business would be natural enemies. Is there such a thing as LINO yet?
Libertarians are front-people for Big Business and Big Money. They are more truthfully called Propertarians or Moneytarians. They are strictly for the right of private property owners to do anything they like with their property. That is the only right they care about. Their pretense of caring about other rights is just for luring people in.
Maybe the other rights they favor are subordinated to money and property. I don’t know. Thanks.
Congratulations to all the good people of Montana—very inspiring!
Not sure if/how this Billings, MT -based Federal judge may come into this, but he is Quite The Dude:
blocked Keystone XL Pipeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Morris_(judge)
Interesting Times
I heard a news snippet this morning that this decision is final, and not justiciable by Federal courts. Didn’t catch the reason. Anyone know why?
Not a lawyer here, but my guess is because this is a state constitutional issue the feds are barred from getting involved.
Because the decision is based on Montana state law, not the federal Constitution. As long as they do not conflict with Federal law or the US Constitution, state supreme courts are the final arbiters of their states’ constitutions.
That’s why the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same sex marriage could not be contravened in federal courts.
Montana ain’t as conservative as you might think.
From the Montana Constitution, ARTICLE IX. ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
Section 1. Protection and improvement. (1) The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.
This is why we got this decision. The MT constitution was drafted in the early 1970s after 100 years of corruption and extreme environmental destruction by the mining and forestry industries. To this day we have the largest Superfund site in the US, and innumerable mining sites where environmental mitigation must be done, at taxpayer expense, in perpetuity. Which means literally forever. So we are pretty sensitive about industrial grade pollution.
Another random fact: Social Security was modeled after a widows-and-orphans support program in Montana.
Some Montana history is in order to understand our quite remarkable constitution.
Around 1920 the copper industry consolidated into the behemoth, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, or more simply known in the state as “The Company.” Anaconda indeed lived up to its name and had a tight constriction on the economy and politics in the state until 1970. In most of the 20th century Anaconda was one of the largest mining concern in the world.
The Company was the biggest employer in the state, owned all of the daily newspapers but one, and owned all of the TV stations as well. It owned vast tracts of forest land, hydroelectric dams and the state’s largest utility. As you may imagine, they owned lots of electeds as well. Somewhere I read that Montana was as close to a corporate-operated state as there has been in the US.
The “copper collar” was only effectively resisted by the militant Butte Miners Union #1 of the communist-led Mine, Mill and Smelterman’s Union, and the populist farmer organizations. When the easily exploitable ore in the Butte mines declined, the Company pulled up stakes, helped to overthrow Salvador Allende in Chile, reclaimed their nationalized mine there, and leave Montana with a huge political and economic vacuum.
In this vacuum there was a general distaste for corporations and the environmental destruction left in the company’s wake. A good chunk of the wealth in New York City was extracted from the land and people of Montana with only poisoned water, tailing piles, and a depressed economy left.
In this breach the Montana constitution was written by non-electeds and approved by a small majority of Montana voters. Among its noteworthy provisions is a “right to a clean and healthful environment.” Others include: a strong right-to-know and open meetings provisions, native education for all students, ban on gender discrimination, and strong privacy provisions.
Sad to say with the influx of “nouveaux” conservatives and the passage of time, this history is slowly being forgotten. But the constitution remains very popular.
I hate to be the party pooper here, but just because the Montana Supreme Court has ruled that Montana youth have a right to a “stable climate system” doesn’t mean they’re going to get it.
Why not? Because Montana only emits about 26 million tons of CO2 per year, which is a mere 0.6% of total US emissions and a mere 0.07% of global emissions. So even if the Montana state government initiates extreme CO2-reduction measures (like halting all fossil-fuel production and fossil fuel consumption, which would entail measures like scrapping all non-EV cars and trucks, scrapping all oil- and gas-fired furnaces, scrapping all gas stoves, scrapping all coal- and gas-fired power stations, and other actions that would leave Montana residents in extreme energy poverty), they would only delay the coming of global warming by about 6 hours per year.
CO2 spreads globally. Even if you significantly reduce your carbon footprint, the CO2 emitted by your neighbors (both near and far) can still affect you. And if one looks at CO2 emissions over time (as seen at https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/), it’s apparent that things are getting worse rather than better. Even if Montana residents literally killed themselves to apply a full -0.026 billion ton/year offset to this chart, we’d be very hard pressed to detect the difference.
The point, I think, is that it sets a precedent for other states to follow.
As indicated, this ruling does not appear to set a precedent in legal terms. It relies on an idiosyncratic provision in the Montana Constitution. It may, however, increased the perceived legitimacy of what previously would have been seen as strained arguments for climate rights.
It’s certainly inspiring and makes me want to sue some folks over the same stuff.
Wow, what a story! Sounds a lot like the rust belt story in the midwest.
Corporation reigns supreme and dominates political and economic landscape in their geographical area; profits are so immense that a small portion actually trickle down to the workers; creative destruction emerges, as it always does, and profits eventually decline; corporation finds another more profitable opportunity to exploit, pulls up stakes, and dumps the remains of its formerly profitable venture onto the community it abandoned; leaving nothing but the equivalent of a curse from God — years and years of misery — behind.
At least Montana got a good state constitution out of it. What it didn’t get, unfortunately, is politicians and government representatives who would follow it.
Thanks for the history lesson!
More here on how other states are trying to prepare for climate change impacts, plus an update on how the Helene recovery is going:
We Went To North Carolina: The Devastation Will Shock You.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbU_aWXJlMg