Montana Supreme Court upholds kids’ landmark climate victory
Matt Simons
(CN) — Like The Who said: “The kids are alright.”
The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with 16 young climate activists who claim the state’s environmental laws violated their constitutional right to a clean, healthy climate, upholding their August 2023 victory in a first-of-its-kind decision that could pave the way for more youth-led climate lawsuits.
“This ruling is not just a win for Montana — it’s a signal to the world that youth-led climate action is powerful and effective,” plaintiff Kian Tanner said in a statement. “We hope this decision inspires others across the country and beyond to stand up for their rights to a livable climate.”
The youths, who are now between 6 and 24 years old, argue that under the Montana Constitution they have a fundamental right to “a clean and healthful environment,” which includes a stable climate system that sustains human lives and liberties — and which was being violated by state energy laws that allowed the government to permit projects without considering the impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Joined by Our Children’s Trust and represented by attorneys with the Western Environmental Law Center and McGarvey Law, they filed the first constitutional climate case in the United States in March 2020 against Montana, Governor Greg Gianforte and several state agencies.
After a bench trial last year, Lewis and Clark County Court Judge Kathy Seeley agreed with the kids that the Montana Environmental Policy Act's limitations were unconstitutional.
The state high court solidified the outcome Wednesday, shutting down the state government's appeal.
Furthermore, the Montana Supreme Court found that the state constitution was intended to contain the strongest environmental protections of any state and that its framers intended it to behave as such.
“Should pollutants not in existence or fully understood in 1972 be exempted from the right to a clean and healthful environment just because the Framers did not specifically contemplate them? We think not,” Chief Justice Mike McGrath wrote in the majority opinion.
Quashing the state's challenge to the plaintiffs' standing, the court found that the youth’s injuries, although suffered by many, were distinct from injury to the public generally. “Thus, the constitutional harm discussed above is concrete, though it is widely shared,” McGrath said, citing precedent in Schoof v. Nesbit.
The court also upheld a lower court's denial of the state's motion to have the youth psychiatrically evaluated in an effort to bolster the standing argument. The youth activists’ standing, the court stated, was based on a constitutional right, not a question of psychological damage.
Overall, the court acknowledged that declaring the law’s provisions unconstitutional will do little to fight global climate change. “But our focus here, as with plaintiffs’ injuries and causation, is not on redressing climate change, but on redressing their constitutional injuries,” McGrath wrote.
McGrath was joined in the majority opinion by Justices James Jeremiah Shea, Beth Baker, Ingrid Gustafson and Laurie McKinnon. Justice Dirk Sandefur concurred with the majority opinion but called the decision no more than a flashy headline-grabber for an exceedingly complex issue.
Justice Jim Rice dissented, stating that the plaintiffs lacked standing and that he would have reversed the decision. He further cautioned the court from doing lawmakers’ jobs and turning into an ad hoc legislative body.
“Plaintiffs here present us with an abstract injury that is indistinguishable from that to the public as a whole and is not legally concrete to them personally,” Rice said.
The Montana Attorney General’s Office expressed disappointment with the ruling.
“The decision is 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,” Montana Department of Justice Press Secretary Chase Scheuer told Courthouse News in a statement.