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By The Vanguard Staff
HELENA, MT – The first-ever U.S. “climate trial” proceeded here last week after a June 12 start where 16 plaintiffs, between five and 22 years of age, “seek to hold the Montana government accountable for its energy-permitting policies,” according to a story in the Flathead Beacon.
The 16 plaintiffs are arguing “their right to a ‘clean and healthful environment’ has been violated,” and are “seeking a transition to a less carbon-intensive energy permitting framework by state agencies such as the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ),” said the Beacon story.
It’s the first constitutional climate trial in US history, according to news reports, although similar youth-led constitutional lawsuits are currently pending in four other states; one federal suit, Juliana v. United States, is also pending and was recently announced to be headed to trial.
But Held v. Montana is the first to reach that crucial stage, said the Guardian, adding the case, which will be decided by Judge Kathy Seeley, could have reverberations around the country, experts say.
“Experts in energy policy and greenhouse gas measurement described a permissive regulatory framework in Montana, that contributes more than 100 tons of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere annually, during the fourth day of a climate trial brought by 16 young Montanans,” the Beacon wrote.
The Beacon cited Montana Environmental Information Center co-director Anne Hedges saying that Montana’s legislative and executive branches are “running in the wrong direction to address the climate crisis” in the expert testimony she provided for the plaintiffs, noting “the only way the youth plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a ‘clean and healthful environment’ can be upheld is if the judicial branch intervenes,” according to the Beacon report.
The Held v. Montana trial before Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Seeley is ongoing this coming week.
Grace Gibson-Snyder, 19, testified last week she loves her home state of Montana. Thinking about its future fills her with fear, according to a Guardian story.
“She’s seen the lands she loves change since she was a child, she told the first judicial district court of Montana this week. The rivers she grew up rafting on are getting lower amid frequent dry spells. The air she breathes in during soccer practice more frequently fills with wildfire smoke. And in Glacier National Park in Montana’s Rocky Mountains, the glaciers are melting,” the Guardian reported.
“I have hopefully 80 years left of living in Montana and living on this earth,” she said on the stand. “Knowing that my health will be in danger for those 80 years, my livelihood, my home? That’s a long time to live with that.”
“The 16 young challengers argue by enacting pro fossil-fuel policies, state officials have violated their constitutional rights to a healthy environment,” according to news accounts.
“I think that a favorable decision in this case would be very energizing to potential plaintiffs around the country and indeed, around the world,” Michael Gerrard, founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said.
“Though its technical legal precedent won’t apply beyond Montana’s borders, it could inspire litigation in other places. More youth may file lawsuits. More law firms might get involved. And other judges may be more willing to hear their cases,” the Beacon wrote.
The newspaper explains, “Held v Montana specifically targets part of the Montana Environmental Policy Act which prevents the state from considering how its energy economy may contribute to climate change. That provision, the plaintiffs and experts witnesses testified this week, is not compatible with the state’s constitutional environmental rights because it exacerbates the climate crisis.”
At the trial, attorneys for the state have suggested the plaintiffs’ allegations are absurd, said the Beacon, adding the state’s assistant attorney general, Michael Russell, claimed, “Montana’s emissions are simply too minuscule to make any difference.”
“If the Montana Environmental Policy Act were altered or overturned,” Russell said, there would be “no meaningful impact or appreciable effect” on the climate. In fact, he said Montana’s carbon contributions are so inconsequential that the state’s role in the climate crisis is “that of a spectator.”
“Attorneys for the state repeated this line of reasoning throughout the week as youth plaintiffs and experts who they invited to the stand spoke about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions. But this tactic, experts say, is nothing new,” said the Beacon.
“In the groundbreaking Massachusetts v EPA, where Massachusetts and 11 other states and some cities sued the Environmental Protection Agency to force it to regulate planet-heating pollution, the US government attempted to use the same tactic, arguing that curbing US motor vehicle emissions wouldn’t appreciably help the climate,” Gerrard explained, adding the Supreme Court rejected the argument.
The Beacon noted, “Defendants in other climate lawsuits have also tried to deflect responsibility. Since 2017, states and municipalities have brought a slew of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies for hiding the dangers of the climate crisis (arguing) cases should be heard in federal courts instead of the state courts where they were filed, which are seen as more favorable to the challengers. But the Supreme Court pushed back on that in two recent decisions.”
“Some influential scholars call the strategy ‘whataboutism,” a tactic of delay “employed by the fossil fuel industry to intentionally push off climate action (and the) problem with ‘whataboutism’ is that it contains a grain of truth. The climate crisis is, indeed, a global problem – one that Montana can’t take on alone,” argues the Beacon story.
Peter Erickson, a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute and an expert witness invited by the plaintiffs, testified last week Montana is responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution than some countries. In 2019, he explained, energy consumed within the state’s borders created as many emissions as Ireland, which has a population six times larger than Montana’s,” said the Beacon.
Every unit of greenhouse gas emitted warms the planet, the plaintiffs and their attorneys and expert witnesses said repeatedly. Though Montana can’t tackle the problem alone, it can make a real contribution, they insisted.
“As most people know who work in this space, every ton of carbon matters and that’s no different in Montana,” said Barbara Chillcott, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center who is representing the plaintiffs.
The Beacon wrote Steven Running, professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences at the University of Montana and expert witness for the plaintiffs, said a “favorable verdict in Montana could also kick off action in other places…What has been shown in history over and over and over again is when a significant social movement is needed, it often is started by one or two or three people.”
