Court tosses youths’ lawsuit that sought action on climate
A divided federal appeals court reluctantly ordered dismissal Friday of a lawsuit by 21 young people demanding government action against climate change, ruling that although global warming is potentially catastrophic, requiring the government to solve it is beyond the power of the judiciary.
The lawsuit, filed in 2015, contended the government was violating the youths’ constitutional rights to life and liberty by approving continued oil, coal and gas development. But the remedy — ordering the government to take steps toward a carbonfree energy system by midcentury — would require “a fundamental transformation of this country’s energy system, if not that of the industrialized world,” said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
“We doubt that any such plan can be supervised or enforced by an Article III court,” Judge Andrew Hurwitz said in the 21 ruling, referring to the constitutional provision establishing the federal courts. “We reluctantly conclude ... that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches (referring to the president and Congress) or to the electorate” that can vote them out of office.
The majority opinion, joined by Judge Mary Murguia, drew an emphatic dissent from U.S.
District Judge Josephine Staton of Santa Ana, temporarily assigned to the appeals court. Although the courts may not be able to undo climate change, she said, they can require the government to take meaningful action.
“The Constitution does not condone the nation’s willful destruction,” Staton said. “Even a partial and temporary reprieve would constitute meaningful redress,” but in response, “my colleagues throw up their hands.”
All three judges were appointed by President Barack Obama. Attorney Julia Olson of Wild Earth Advocates, representing the plaintiffs, said she would ask the full appeals court for a new hearing before an 11judge panel.
The majority and dissenting opinions agreed that “climate change is wreaking havoc on our nation,” Olson said. “The courts don’t have to solve climate change. They have to protect the rights of the young people by setting standards for protection and by declaring when the government is violating their rights.”
Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Bossert
The dissenting majority and opinions agreed that “climate change is wreaking havoc on our nation.”
Julia Olson, plaintiffs’ attorney
Clark, representing the Trump administration, said the government was “pleased with the outcome.”
The requirement that plaintiffs prove legal “standing” — that they face harm that the courts have the power to remedy — “is a vital limitation on the power of the federal courts,” Clark said in a statement.
The suit was filed during the Obama administration and continued under President Trump, who has denied that humans contribute to climate change and ordered increases in oil and coal production on federal lands. At a hearing on the case in June, Clark told the court that the plaintiffs were “trying to vindicate a constitutional right that doesn’t exist.”
The plaintiffs ranged in age from 8 to 19 when they sued. Some said their homes and schools had been flooded because of warming temperatures, one said a drought on an Indian reservation had forced her to leave home, and others said their allergies or asthma had been worsened by smoke from wildfires.
The suit relied on the “public trust” doctrine, which makes the government responsible for managing natural resources, like land, air and water, for the benefit of its inhabitants. A federal judge in Oregon refused to dismiss the suit and scheduled a trial in the fall of 2018, but the
Supreme Court, while rejecting the administration’s request for immediate dismissal, put the case on hold during appeal.
In Friday’s ruling, Hurwitz acknowledged “substantial” evidence that “the federal government has long promoted fossil fuel use despite knowing that it can cause catastrophic climate change.” He said the hottest years on record have all been within the past decade, sea levels are rising, and “the problem is approaching the point of no return.”
But Hurwitz said the plaintiffs are seeking not only court orders halting current fossil fuel permits and subsidies, but also judicial orders to reduce emissions, which would require action by both the presidential administration and Congress.
Declarations by the plaintiffs’ own experts have made it clear, Hurwitz said, that “any effective plan would necessarily require a host of complex policy decisions entrusted, for better or worse, to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches.”
Staton, in dissent, responded that the courts were not being asked “to stop climate change in its tracks” but only “to curb by some measurable degree what the record shows to be an otherwise inevitable march to the point of no return” — in other words, “to do something to help the plaintiffs.”