A federal appeals court has sided with the Trump administration and 19 Republican-led states in a constitutional challenge to several of President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at increasing fossil fuel production, concluding that young plaintiffs had no effective case against the federal government. The appeals court upheld the lower court’s rejection of the case, known as Lighthizer v. Trump, saying it is not the judiciary’s role to oversee the government’s energy policy.
The decision was issued Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland, Oregon, after the panel heard the case in April. During the hearing, judges appointed by Obama, Biden, and Trump expressed skepticism about some of the plaintiffs’ claims. For example, the plaintiffs argue that the relief they requested is achievable and that this case is significantly different from an earlier juvenile climate change lawsuit against the federal government called Juliana v. United States, which the Ninth Circuit also rejected.
Unlike the Juliana case, which asserted that the government’s decades-long systematic fossil fuel-based energy policy was unconstitutional, the Lighthizer case only focused on three executive orders signed by President Trump at the beginning of his second term, including two orders issued on his first day in office: “Free America’s Energy” and “Declaring a National Energy Emergency.” The 22 young plaintiffs asked the court to declare the order unconstitutional because it is expected to cause more dangerous carbon pollution and worsen the climate emergency. The plaintiffs also asked the court to block the Trump administration from taking further action to implement the order.
But last fall, a federal district court in Montana dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the order could not remedy the plaintiffs’ alleged damages. That’s because it would require oversight of numerous federal agencies and actions, and would step into the realm of policymaking. The court noted that the Ninth Circuit rejected the Juliana case in its decision and said it considers that decision to be binding precedent.
In its decision Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit said it was “not persuaded” that the relief sought in this case is that different from what the Juliana plaintiffs are seeking, saying both cases “require extensive judicial oversight of executive branch actions related to energy policy.”
The court further argued that it was “unprecedented” for the Lighthizer plaintiffs to “thoroughly” challenge hundreds of agency lawsuits, all based on the executive order, through a single lawsuit.
The committee also cited the Juliana case and said it once again rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that a court order declaring government action (in this case, the challenged order) unconstitutional would provide meaningful relief.
The youth plaintiffs and their attorneys harshly criticized the court’s decision, arguing that the court was negligent in its duty and that the decision empowers the president to continue harming the nation’s children unchecked through “broad fossil fuel policies.”
“The court never said we were wrong. It never said the harm wasn’t real. It just said it wouldn’t stop the harm,” lead plaintiff Eva Lighthizer said. “They had the power to act, but they chose not to. By the time we have suffered enough damage to satisfy them, it will be too late.”
“The court did not decide whether these executive orders were constitutional. Nor did it decide whether the federal government could knowingly endanger children. Instead, it slammed courthouse doors on children who were fighting for their lives. , has ordered the filing of hundreds of lawsuits challenging the actions of all government agencies implementing the president’s unconstitutional executive orders,” Julia Olson, chief counsel and co-executive director of the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement.
“Courts do not become policymakers when they stop government actions that violate the Constitution,” Olson added. “That’s their job. These young men deserve a willing trial.”
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The Justice Department released a statement about the ruling, saying the Ninth Circuit “unanimously upheld what the district court said months ago: Plaintiffs lacked standing to bring this action because they had not established that the executive order caused any injury or that the court could remedy the injury.”
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who led a coalition of 19 states that intervened in the case as defendants supporting the Trump administration, called the court’s decision “a huge victory for Montana.”
“My office is pleased to intervene and support the Trump administration in this lawsuit,” Knudsen said in a statement. “We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, because two courts proved we were right all along. This case was nothing more than an attempt to block President Trump’s pro-energy policies and advance liberal climate policies that are detrimental to Montana.”
The lawsuit was filed in Montana, the home state of many young plaintiffs, including one who successfully sued the state government over a law that barred regulators from considering climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions when approving fossil fuel projects. The case, Held v. Montana, was the first climate case of its kind to be tried in the United States, and the victory for the young plaintiffs was seen as a historic advance for climate accountability.
It is unclear whether the Lighthizer plaintiffs will file further appeals and take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Our Children’s Trust said in a press release that the plaintiffs’ lawyers were “carefully considering the decision and evaluating all legal options available to the young people whose lives, health, safety and futures are at stake.”
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