U.S. government calls for teens’ climate change lawsuit to be halted

(Reuters) - The U.S. government yesterday urged a federal appeals court to issue an order blocking a lawsuit over climate change brought by a group of Oregon teenagers, warning that allowing it to go forward could lead to a constitutional crisis.

At a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, Eric Grant, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, said an extraordinary order would be justified to block the lawsuit, which names President Donald Trump and members of his cabinets as defendants.

“According to the plaintiffs’ complaint virtually every U.S. citizen has the right to sue virtually any government agency,” said Grant. Allowing the litigation would distract the executive branch from performing its duties, he added. Filed in 2015 in federal court in Oregon, the lawsuit by 21 teenagers claims government officials and oil industry chief executives knew about the causes and effects of climate change but nevertheless carried on with policies that perpetuated it, violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to live in a habitable climate.

The lawsuit originally named President Barack Obama and members of his administration, but the defendants were substituted with Trump and his appointees in February 2017, including all cabinet secretaries and several agency heads.