Can the Latest Youth Climate Case Win Where Others Have Failed?

MISSOULA, Mont.—During a short recess in their first hearing, the young plaintiffs in the Lighthiser v. Trump lawsuit gathered outside the courtroom to dance along to a TikTok video.

They’d been listening to nearly two days’ worth of testimony and legal arguments that began Sept. 16, sitting attentively in their button-down shirts, khakis and one thrift-store purple suit. Five of them had taken the stand themselves, describing how climate change was threatening their futures, then facing cross-examination from U.S. Department of Justice lawyers. It was time to just be kids for a moment.

The 22 youth plaintiffs had their first day in court at a hearing before the U.S. District Court of Montana in Missoula, where they, supported by a slate of expert witnesses, asked Judge Dana L. Christensen to issue a preliminary injunction against three of President Trump’s executive orders designed to “unleash” fossil fuels. The Department of Justice, along with “intervenors” from 18 state governments and Guam, all asked for the case to be dismissed.

The three executive orders—“Unleashing American Energy,” “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” and “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry”—direct the executive branch to remove burdens to domestic energy production, especially coal, but exclude wind and solar power from those actions. The plaintiffs argued that this acceleration of fossil fuel development harms their physical, mental and economic health. And they spent a good deal of time emphatically asserting that their case was not the same as Juliana v. United States.

Their success hinges on whether or not the courts agree on that last point.

The two cases have undeniable similarities. Both feature young plaintiffs—Lighthiser’s range from 7 to 25—who allege the federal government is violating their Constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuels. (Some of the Juliana plaintiffs are now part of the Lighthiser case.) Both were filed by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to climate work. But where Juliana wound its way through the legal system for 10 years before finally being dismissed for lack of standing (the right to bring a case to court) last March, the Lighthiser team hopes this case will hit the mark.

“Outlining the differences between Juliana and Lighthiser is super-important,” said Miko Vergun, 24, of Oregon, a plaintiff in both cases. “In Juliana, we were trying to ask for a climate recovery plan. And we were also arguing that we had the constitutional right to a stable climate that the federal government was continuously infringing upon. In this case, we’re arguing that the three executive orders that Trump had implemented are infringing on those constitutional rights to life and liberty.”

The hopes of climate activists following the Lighthiser proceedings have been buoyed by the success of another climate suit brought to a Montana courtroom by Our Children’s Trust, Held v. Montana in 2023, which included 15 of the current plaintiffs. But that case was against the state of Montana, whose constitution guarantees the right to “a clean and healthful environment,” which the U.S. Constitution does not do.

The plaintiffs this time around crafted their request to the court to sidestep the questions about standing that sunk Juliana. To have the legal standing to bring a case in federal court, plaintiffs must prove three things: that they have been harmed; that their harm was caused by the action they’re challenging, which is known as “traceability”; and that the court has the power to address that harm—“redressability.” In Juliana, the courts ultimately ruled that the judicial branch doesn’t have the power to compel the federal government to adopt a specific energy policy. Lighthiser asks the court for a narrower ruling: a declaration that the three executive orders are unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs who testified at the hearing spoke about how climate change personally affected them. Joseph Lee, 19, of California, described being hospitalized for heatstroke. Avery McRae, 20, who attends college in Florida, testified that hurricanes forced her to evacuate from her campus three times in two years. Californian Jeffrey K. (lawyers withheld his last name because he’s a minor), 11, told the court that worsening wildfire smoke poses a significant risk to him and his younger brother, both of whom have lung conditions. “Unleashing fossil fuels will definitely make the entire environment, heat-wise, air quality-wise, worse,” he said. All five mentioned mental health impacts like fear, anxiety, sadness and uncertainty about their futures.

“[The defendants] really aren’t questioning that the young people are being injured in this case,” said Andrea Rodgers, deputy director of U.S. Strategy for Our Children’s Trust.

But the traceability and redressability standards pose a larger hurdle for the plaintiffs, dragging in thorny questions about the separation of powers between branches of the U.S. government.

The plaintiffs allege that a slew of recent government actions can be linked to the three executive orders, including the canceling of wind power permits, the extension of the length of time that some coal plants will operate, the dismissing of federal climate scientists and proposals to shut down climate research satellites and rescind the Environmental Protection Agency’s critical endangerment finding that is the basis of its regulation of greenhouse gases. Many of those decisions didn’t explicitly mention the three executive orders, but the plaintiffs argue that the orders could be reasonably inferred to have caused those actions.

John Podesta, a former climate advisor to Presidents Biden and Obama, testified at the hearing, “These decisions predictably and directly flow from these orders…These kids are being harmed by this action, and this court can do something about that.”

The hearing broached the question of exactly what a preliminary injunction would change about the Trump administration’s actions.

“I’m troubled by the practical effects of what you’re asking me to do,” Christensen told Julia Olson, the plaintiffs’ chief legal counsel, last week. He wondered aloud if issuing the preliminary injunction meant he’d be required to review every fossil fuel-related action the government took in the future. For example, he asked, if the administration issued a permit for a coal mine expansion in Montana, would that be a violation of his order? And how could the order also make the administration give out more permits for wind and solar projects?

The defense has seized on that concern. Michael Sawyer, the lead Department of Justice lawyer, argued that the plaintiffs would claim the injunction they’re asking Christensen to issue was violated “every time the agencies did something they don’t like.”

“We have hundreds, maybe thousands, of lawsuits packed into one,” he added

Another core issue—and the one that most bedeviled the Juliana case—is who bears responsibility for the country’s energy decisions.

“The question is, is it the role of the courts to be making major decisions about national energy policy, or does that need to be left to Congress and the president?” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. “[The Lighthiser plaintiffs] are asking for less than the plaintiffs requested in Juliana, but they’re still asking a lot.”

The Department of Justice argues that decisions about energy permits and regulations belong squarely to the executive branch, not the courts. In the hearing, Sawyer went so far as to call the case “at its core, an undemocratic lawsuit,” because voters had elected Trump knowing his preference for fossil fuels. 

Plaintiffs counter that the courts have a right to challenge energy policy if it affects their fundamental rights.

“If policymakers could decide to threaten children’s lives, then the Bill of Rights would mean nothing,” Olson told Christensen.

Both sides agree that the court stepping in on a climate matter like this would be unprecedented. But the plaintiffs expressly ask for a groundbreaking ruling. Olson even compared a ruling in their favor to Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Winning a climate case on constitutional grounds will likely be challenging, Gerrard said.

The success of Our Children’s Trust in Held v. Montana in 2023 meant the state would have to consider greenhouse gas emissions in its permitting processes. But Montana’s guarantee of a healthy and clean environment in its state constitution “made an enormous difference,” Gerrard said.

Without any environmental rights spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, plaintiffs now rely on a court interpreting the right to a stable climate as falling under the rights to life and liberty.

Department of Justice lawyers put forth a number of other arguments: that the executive orders don’t pose an imminent threat to the youth plaintiffs; that the additional carbon emissions associated with the orders are negligible on a global scale; that many of the challenged government actions—like the rescinding of the endangerment finding—are still only proposals that might not actually be enacted; and that a clean-energy grid would be unreliable, more expensive and damaging to U.S. trade relations.

The defendants didn’t call any witnesses for their case. And they struck the loudest note by repeatedly comparing Lighthiser to Juliana. “This is the same case,” Sawyer argued in court.

Both sides now await Christensen’s ruling. He could grant the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, or allow the executive orders to stand while letting the case proceed to trial. Or he could dismiss it. If that happens, Our Children’s Trust can appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

After the Sept. 17 hearing wrapped, the plaintiffs posed for photos outside the courthouse, fists raised. “Getting to hear my co-plaintiffs testify was incredibly inspiring,” said Eva Lighthiser, 19, of Montana, the lead plaintiff and part of the Held case two years ago. “It’s so incredible to not only have the opportunities we did during Held, but also have our voices heard just now.”

But one expert leaving the courtroom expressed uncertainty about the case’s prospects, even though he believes the scientific underpinnings of the case are irrefutable. Steven Running, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning climate scientist who testified for the plaintiffs, unlocked his bike from a rack in front of the courthouse and clicked on his helmet. He said he appreciated the chance to present climate science to the court, but that the legal wrangling to come was “way beyond my pay grade.”

“I think all of us normal public people like to think that these things are right versus wrong, and the right side wins.”