A new youth climate lawsuit by 22 Americans aged seven to 25 alleges that the Trump administration is engaging in unlawful executive overreach by issuing executive orders that intentionally boost the production of fossil fuels while frustrating the growth of renewable energy.
In Lighthiser v. Trump, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, the youth plaintiffs say the administration’s actions violate their constitutional rights to life, health and safety and breach congressional mandates to safeguard public health and ecosystems.
“Trump’s fossil fuel orders are a death sentence for my generation,” said named plaintiff Eva Lighthiser in a press release from nonprofit public interest law firm Our Children’s Trust, one of plaintiffs’ representatives. “I’m not suing because I want to — I’m suing because I have to. My health, my future, and my right to speak the truth are all on the line. He’s waging war on us with fossil fuels as his weapon, and we’re fighting back with the Constitution.”
The plaintiffs — who are from Hawai’i, Montana, Oregon, Florida and California — assert that the executive orders’ directive to “unleash fossil fuels” exacerbates the climate crisis while worsening youth plaintiffs’ health and climate injuries.
By prioritizing gas, oil and coal over renewable and clean energy sources like solar and wind, the “Unleashing American Energy” order ignored scientific warnings, putting the futures of children at risk.
“From day one, President Donald Trump and his administration have imposed their denial of well-established climate science on governmental and private institutions at the cost of young people’s lives. Defendants have not only prioritized fossil fuels over renewable energy sources, intentionally ignoring the devastating consequences fossil fuel energy has on the climate, but are also deleting research, data, and education on climate change, impairing young people from accessing the very resources they need to protect their lives and futures by tackling the climate crisis they are inheriting,” Our Children’s Trust said.
Plaintiffs say they are currently experiencing harms from global heating in the form of drought, wildfires and hurricanes, and that the executive orders will only worsen the conditions, reported The New York Times.
The executive orders cited in the lawsuit include those that declare a “National Energy Emergency,” direct agencies to “Unleash American Energy,” and one aimed at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry.”
The complaint points to immediate consequences of the executive orders, such as an exemption from pollution rules given to Montana’s Colstrip coal-fired power plant. The plant is the biggest emitter of fine particulate matter pollution in the country, according to Environmental Protection Agency data.
Founder of Our Children’s Trust Julia Olson said several of the youth plaintiffs live close to the plant or a coal mine that supplies it, or along transport routes for the facilities.
“The coal cars are brimming with coal that just blows [dust] out all over my town,” Lighthiser said, as The Guardian reported. “That could [affect] my own body and my own health, and it feels very intimidating, because it’s not something that feels like it’s in my control right now.”
Plaintiffs are requesting that the court protect youths’ U.S. and state constitutional rights, declare the executive orders unconstitutional and block their implementation.
“Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of climate change as it endangers their physical and mental health, disrupts family and cultural bonds, and deepens economic hardship,” Our Children’s Trust said.
Olson believes the case is winnable, since it brings claims under basic rights granted by the U.S. Constitution.
Olson emphasized that, no matter how the court rules, filing the lawsuit was “itself a success.”
“Having young people rise up at a time when democracy is threatened and when there’s retaliation against so many people in this country for standing up against the administration, that is success,” Olson said, as reported by The Guardian. “It’s about having the bravery to bring claims in the court, of not being too afraid to use their rights.”
COMMENTS