2023-06-20 23:32:52
The attorney for 16 youths on Tuesday asked a Montana judge for a landmark order declaring that the state’s pro-fossil fuel policies violated their rights, concluding the closing arguments in the first climate change lawsuit led by young people in the United States.
Judge Kathy Seeley in Helena considered the case Tuesday, following hearing from 12 of the plaintiffs during the trial, who described how state policies are exacerbating the climate crisis, impacting their health and threaten their future.
Nate Bellinger, one of the youths’ attorneys, said in oral argument on Tuesday that Mr Seeley is expected to deliver a judgment that the state’s continued approval of fossil fuel projects violates the constitutional guarantee of state to a “clean and healthy environment”.
He added that “future generations will remember this historic trial”.
Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell countered that the courts are not the place to set climate policy and that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that Montana’s relatively low emissions might be held responsible for a global crisis.
“This case caught the nation’s attention because it was framed or perceived as a referendum on climate change in general,” he said. But “this is not a public debate or a popularity contest”.
The trial began on June 12, three years following the young plaintiffs, now aged 5 to 22, filed their lawsuit. This is one of many youth-led constitutional climate cases pending in courts across the United States.
The young plaintiffs claim that state permits for activities such as coal and gas are exacerbating the climate crisis, when the state has a duty, under a 1972 amendment to Montana’s constitution, to to protect and improve the environment.
State attorneys said during the trial that the youths failed to target a specific policy on which real relief might be awarded. They said the main policy targeted by the lawsuit, the Montana Environmental Policy Act, is a “procedural” law that does not mandate specific outcomes.
During the trial, the young plaintiffs testified that the state’s policies contributed to extreme heat and drought, the shrinking of the state’s famous glaciers and worsening wildfires.
“When I think of summer, I think of smoke. It sounds like a dystopian movie, but it’s real life,” plaintiff Claire Vlases, 20, testified last week.
In the state’s defense, government officials said agencies such as Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality do not have the authority to deny legal permits, and that a ruling in favor plaintiffs would probably not change that.
The plaintiffs originally sought an injunction ordering the state to develop a remediation plan or emission reduction policies. Ms Seeley rejected that request in 2021, saying it would force the court to make policy decisions that would be best left to other branches of government.
L’affaire est Held v. Montana, Montana First Judicial District Court, No. CDV-2020-307.
For young people: Nate Bellinger and Julia Olson of Our Children’s Trust; Roger Sullivan of McGarvey Law; and Melissa Hornbein of the Western Environmental Law Center.
For the State: Michael Russell, Assistant Attorney General, Montana Department of Justice, and Mark Stermitz, Crowley Fleck.
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