Montana laws ignoring climate change violate its citizens’ right to a clean and healthful environment, a state judge ruled Monday. Two months after the first youth climate litigation went to trial, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley issued a historic verdict for the youth plaintiffs in Held v. Montana, laying out how the state’s insistence on authorizing new fossil fuel projects without analyzing their greenhouse gas emissions or climate impacts hurts both the environment and Montana’s young people.
“Every additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries,” the decision reads. Striking down laws that keep state agencies from considering emissions, Seeley decided, has “significant health benefits” for the children and young adults suing their government. In response, the plaintiffs expressed elation, joy and disbelief. “We are heard!” Kian Tanner said in a statement.
“We are heard!”
Seeley walked through her reasoning for the decision in a 103-page ruling, which affirmed that climate is a “part of the environmental life-support system” guaranteed by the Montana Constitution. She agreed that the harm caused by climate change is significant — hurting the plaintiffs’ mental and physical health, limiting their access to traditional food sources and threatening family ranching operations, among other things — and that it is linked to state policies. “It was better than hoped for,” said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
The decision reads as a lesson in the “overwhelming scientific consensus” of climate change. Seeley points out that state’s leadership has known about the dangerous impacts of climate change for at least the last 30 years. She also notes that ecosystems are interconnected, and that treating Montana’s actions in a vacuum is not scientifically supported. The findings spend numerous pages discussing youth’s unique vulnerability to climate change and its impacts, as well as how climate change is already impacting Montana’s environment and economy. In a statement, Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit law firm which led this and other trailblazing youth climate cases, said it believes that these facts “set forth critical evidentiary and legal precedent for the right of youth to a safe climate.”
By considering climate change’s impacts when approving or denying permits for fossil fuel activities, including coal and natural gas-powered energy plants, coal mining and oil and gas refineries, Seeley wrote, the state can safeguard its citizens’ constitutional rights. The ruling notes that this is possible, because it’s technically and economically feasible to replace the majority of Montana’s fossil fuel energy by 2030.
The immediate direct ramifications in Montana, though, are “extremely narrow,” Gerrard said. The ruling requires the state to consider climate change when making energy decisions — but agencies could simply consider it and move forward with projects anyway. “The much greater significance is that we now have a ruling that affirms climate science after a trial and says that where there is a constitutional right to a clean environment, that can have consequences on climate change,” he said.
The complaint, led by Our Children’s Trust, focused on the Montana Environmental Protection Act, or MEPA, as well as two laws limiting the state’s consideration of climate change passed by the Montana Legislature this spring. MEPA established a process to assess the environmental consequences of state actions but has been repeatedly limited in scope. HB 971 narrowed its purview again this year by prohibiting state agencies from considering greenhouse gas emissions; SB 557 contained similar restrictions, stating that concerns about emissions could not stop or delay permitting.
The state has approved or expanded numerous large-scale projects, including coal mines and gas-fired power plants, in recent years without including climate impacts in its analysis. The ruling argues that emissions from these and other projects in Montana are “nationally and globally significant,” measured by both local effects and their contribution to global climate change.
“More rulings like this will certainly come.”
Montana’s unique constitution provided the backbone for the legal challenge. It’s one of six states — and the only one in the West — with constitutionally based environmental protections. The Heldv.Montana ruling, experts say, underscores the importance of having similar constitutional environmental protections for this particular strategy to work. “This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate,” said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and the executive director of Our Children’s Trust, in a statement. “More rulings like this will certainly come.”
Youth climate cases are set to continue into next year, with trials slated for the federal Julianav.United States and state Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation cases, both led by lawyers with Our Children’s Trust. Hawai‘i already has environmental protections in its constitution. There’s also a push to add Montana-esque environmental protections, so-called “green amendments,” to other state constitutions — including Nevada’s.
In Montana, the legal process is likely to continue. The state attorney general’s office said it would appeal the decision to the Montana Supreme Court, with a spokesperson telling The Flathead Beacon it was “absurd.”
Kylie Mohr is a correspondent covering wildfire for High Country News. She writes from Montana. Email her at kylie.mohr@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
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