Montana to ask state top court to overturn landmark climate ruling
Source: Reuters
July 10, 2024 6:22 AM EDT Updated 2 hours ago
July 10 (Reuters) - Montana's top court is set to hear the state's appeal of a landmark ruling holding that it was violating the rights of young people to a clean and healthful environment by barring regulators from considering the impacts on climate change when approving fossil fuel projects.
The Republican-led state will urge the Montana Supreme Court to conclude that the lawsuit by 16 young people should never have gone to trial in the first place because they lack legal standing to challenge a restriction on agencies' ability to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
The state is asking the court to reverse an August 2023 ruling by District Court Judge Kathy Seeley in Helena in the closely watched case. It was the first lawsuit in the United States by young environmental activists challenging state and federal policies they say are exacerbating climate change to go to trial.
The youth-led lawsuits have taken aim at government policies at the state and federal level that they say encourage or allow the extraction and burning of fossil fuels and violate their rights under U.S. or state constitutions. While some of those cases have faltered, the youth activists last month scored a major victory when the state of Hawaii agreed as part of a first-in-the-nation settlement to take action to decarbonize its transportation system by 2045.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/montana-ask-state-top-court-overturn-landmark-climate-ruling-2024-07-10/
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