Montana, 18 other states move to support feds in new climate lawsuit
Montana and 18 other states are seeking to help the federal government defend itself against a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump’s policies to increase fossil fuel production threaten the futures of young people.
That federal complaint, filed in May by 10 of the 16 Montanans who successfully challenged the climate change policies at the state level, aims to block the Trump administration’s efforts to “unleash” domestic fossil fuel production and reverse green energy policies implemented by his predecessor.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen on Tuesday filed a brief in U.S. District Court in Missoula asking Judge Dana Christensen to allow the coalition of states, plus the Territory of Guam, to intervene as defendants.
“At stake for the state intervenors in this litigation are significant property and economic interests,” states the brief, signed by Montana Solicitor General Christian Corrigan, “including use of vast swaths of land and natural resources, employment of hundreds of thousands of their citizens, the economic restoration of struggling communities, the cost of energy, attracting business and employers, tax revenues, and the reallocation and potentially wasted allocation of significant state resources.”
The 38-page brief only mentions the word “climate” once, in the context of allegations made by the plaintiffs, and goes on to reference “effects on climate that are, allegedly, particularly acute in Montana.”
Attorneys with Knudsen’s office, representing the state of Montana during the closely watched Held v. Montana trial two years ago, had agreed “that there’s a scientific consensus that earth is warming as a direct result of human GHG emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.”
The seven-day trial included testimony from some of the same expert witnesses cited by plaintiffs in the recent federal case — and whose conclusions that greenhouse gases are driving rising temperatures, declining snowpack and increasing droughts and wildfires in Montana went largely unchallenged by the state.
The young plaintiffs, led by then-22-year-old Rikki Held of Broadus, prevailed over arguments by the state that its relatively small contributions to a global problem were causing their alleged harms. That ruling was upheld by the Montana Supreme Court last year in a nearly unanimous decision.
Held is also one of the plaintiffs in the new federal case, which similarly ties the government’s fossil-fuel policies to climate change and the consequences young people will face as a result. The plaintiffs are being represented by Montana environmental attorney Roger Sullivan, attorneys with Our Children’s Trust, attorney Phil Gregory — all of which worked on the Held case — and the law firm Public Justice.
Our Children’s Trust issued a press release Thursday framing the states’ intervention as evidence that they see the group’s lawsuit as “the biggest legal threat to the fossil fuel executive orders that are harming children, worsening the climate crisis, and violating the Constitution.”
“Instead of protecting the health and safety of young people, these states are lining up to defend orders that unleash more fossil fuel pollution, silence science and dismantle safeguards passed by Congress,” lead attorney Julia Olsen said in the press release. “Their intervention confirms what we already know: this constitutional rights case is vitally important, urgent, and it is exposing unlawful policies they are desperate to defend.”
Sam Wilson is the outdoors and environment reporter at the Missoulian.