The young Americans say they’ve experienced wildfire and heat-induced visits to the emergency room, limited career opportunities and a loss of recreational traditions.
By Amanda Eggert MONTANA FREE PRESS
Twenty-two young Americans, 10 of whom prevailed in the Held v. Montana constitutional climate case, are suing the Trump administration over its climate and energy policies.
The plaintiffs argue in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that by dismantling climate protections and working to “unleash” American energy, the executive branch is violating the separation of powers clause in the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs also argue that the president’s executive orders are threatening their rights to life and liberty.
The lead plaintiff in the litigation is Eva Lighthiser, a 19-year-old Livingston resident who also was a plaintiff in a constitutional lawsuit that challenged Montana’s permissive approach to approving fossil fuel projects. Lighthiser is joined by Rikki Held and eight other plaintiffs from the Montana litigation, as well as a handful of young Americans from Hawaii, Oregon, Florida and California.
During a seven-day bench trial in 2023, the Held lawsuit focused an international spotlight on Montana and its unique constitutional guarantee of a “clean and healthful environment,” which the district court — and later the Montana Supreme Court — interpreted to include a “stable climate system.”
The federal lawsuit Lighthiser and her co-plaintiffs filed on May 29 challenges three executive orders that Trump issued during the first three months of his second term in the White House. The plaintiffs argue that the orders have suppressed climate science and slowed the transition to renewable energy sources in favor of fossil fuels, “thereby worsening the air pollution and climate conditions that immediately harm and endanger Plaintiffs’ lives and personal security.”
The plaintiffs are asking the court to invalidate the executive orders and direct Trump and the 11 federal agencies listed as defendants not to implement or enforce them.
“President Trump’s EOs falsely claim an energy emergency, while the true emergency is that fossil fuel pollution is destroying the foundation of Plaintiffs’ lives,” the 126-page filing reads.
In a press release about the lawsuit, Lighthiser described Trump’s fossil fuel directives as a “death sentence for my generation.”
“I’m not suing because I want to — I’m suing because I have to,” said Lighthiser, who plans to pursue environmental studies in college. “My health, my future, and my right to speak the truth are all on the line. [President Trump is] waging war on us with fossil fuels as his weapon, and we’re fighting back with the Constitution.”
In an email to Montana Free Press on Thursday, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers defended Trump’s energy agenda.
“The American people are more concerned with the future generations’ economic and national security, which is why they elected President Trump in a landslide victory to restore America’s energy dominance. Future generations should not have to foot the bill for the lefts’ radical climate agenda,” Rogers wrote.
In addition to enumerating the climate harms plaintiffs have reported, including wildfire-related and heat-induced visits to the emergency room, diminished career opportunities, property damage spurred by extreme weather events and a loss of cultural and recreational traditions, the complaint outlines tensions between Trump’s executive orders and the missions of congressionally authorized agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
One of the executive orders named in the lawsuit directs federal agencies to identify and rescind actions that place an “undue burden” on the “identification, development or use of domestic energy resources — with particular attention to oil, natural gas, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral and nuclear energy resources.” Another directs executive branch agencies to use emergency powers to facilitate energy companies’ access to federally-owned energy resources and the infrastructure required to transport and process them. The third focuses on the development and prioritization of coal-fired electricity.
In the Held v. Montana case, the Montana Supreme Court directed the state to develop a system for inventorying and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions associated with large projects seeking state-issued permits. This spring, the Montana Legislature adopted a framework that state agencies like the Montana Department of Environmental Quality can use to quantify greenhouse gas emissions.
Many of the same attorneys who argued the Held v. Montana case are representing the plaintiffs in this litigation, including Roger Sullivan of Kalispell. Three of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the case work for Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit focused on climate litigation that spent the better part of a decade fighting the federal government in the Juliana v. United States lawsuit, a federal constitutional climate case that concluded earlier this year in the government’s favor.
