In June 2023, more than a dozen young Montanans gathered inside a courthouse in the state capital of Helena for a historic climate change trial in a lawsuit they had brought against their state government. The Held v. Montana suit challenged a law enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature that explicitly banned regulators from considering climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions during project environmental reviews — effectively shielding fossil fuel projects from scrutiny over their climate pollution. The suit claimed that this law violated Montana’s Constitution, specifically a provision that guarantees the right to a clean and healthful environment. During the seven-day trial, youth plaintiffs told their stories of their personal experience dealing with extreme heat, flooding, wildfires and associated smoke, and other impacts that are worsened by the fossil-fueled climate crisis. Climate scientists and medical doctors provided expert testimony.
Later that summer, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley issued her ruling based on the evidence presented, concluding that the state law was unconstitutional. It was a breakthrough victory for youth climate activists and their attorneys at Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm that represents children in rights-based climate litigation against governments. It was also an affirmation of climate science, with the court recognizing that every additional ton of greenhouse gas emissions exacerbates climate impacts and increases exposure of the youth plaintiffs to harms now and in the future. The Montana Supreme Court subsequently upheld Seeley’s ruling on appeal.
Now, three years after that landmark trial in Montana, many of these same youth plaintiffs who joined a federal climate lawsuit against the second Trump administration are finding the courthouse doors slammed shut, as federal courts at both the district and appellate levels have swiftly dismissed their suit. That case, called Lighthiser v. Trump , challenged three executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that are designed to maximize fossil fuel extraction and use while undermining the buildout of renewable solar and wind energy and suppressing climate science. The case argued that the executive orders — which are expected to unleash hundreds of millions of tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions annually — violate youth plaintiffs’ rights to life and liberty under the U.S. Constitution. It also argued that Trump exceeded his authority with the orders because they effectively aim to override climate and environment-related statutes passed by Congress. It was filed in a federal district court in Montana in May 2025 by Our Children’s Trust on behalf of 22 youth plaintiffs, including lead plaintiff Eva Lighthiser and nine other veterans from the Held v. Montana case.
Last September, U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen held a hearing in Missoula to consider the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction — a request for the court to temporarily halt implementation of the executive orders while the case proceeds — as well as the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case. Several of the plaintiffs and their expert witnesses testified during the hearing, which was the first time a federal court has heard live testimony in a youth climate case. Many of these same youth plaintiffs … are finding the courthouse doors slammed shut. Christensen ruled a month later that he had “reluctantly” concluded that the case must be dismissed . Although he acknowledged that Trump’s orders would only deepen the youths’ alleged harms — even noting that “climate change and the exposure from fossil fuels presents a children’s health emergency”— he pointed to a precedent set by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a previous youth climate lawsuit against the federal government, Juliana v. U.S., which determined that courts could not “create environmental policy” or supervise an “untold number of federal agency actions.” (In a fiery dissent in that case, District Judge Josephine Staton wrote , “It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses. … [Yet] my colleagues throw up their hands, concluding that this case presents nothing fit for the Judiciary.”)
Lawyers for the Lighthiser plaintiffs appealed to the 9th Circuit — the same court that shut the doors on the Juliana case. During a hearing in April, they argued that this case against Trump was entirely different. “This is an executive order case, which makes it different. Juliana was not an executive order case. And Juliana’s redressability holding does not mean that every case touching on climate or energy policy is outside of the court’s Article III authority,” Julia Olson, lead counsel for the youth plaintiffs and founder and co-executive director of Our Children’s Trust, told the three-judge appellate panel.
That panel issued its decision on June 2 in an unpublished memorandum opinion (meaning it should not be cited as precedent), and it upheld the district court’s dismissal . According to plaintiffs’ attorneys, the 9th Circuit panel not only failed to distinguish the Lighthiser case from Juliana, but it also ignored the factual record and evidence of harm presented during the District Court hearing. “Rather than crediting that record, the court dismissed it as speculation,” a press release from Our Children’s Trust and Public Justice asserts.
“The panel further concluded that stopping implementation of the executive orders would require excessive judicial supervision of federal energy policy,” the press release adds. “The plaintiffs, however, did not ask the court to dictate or manage energy policy. They asked the court to prohibit the executive orders they alleged are unconstitutional, a traditional and essential judicial function.” In a statement , the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the 9th Circuit panel got it right. “The appellate court unanimously affirmed what the district court said months ago — the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring this suit because they did not establish that the executive orders caused any injury or that any injury could be redressed by the courts,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson.
“Standing” is the legal term used to describe the right of a party to bring a case in court. Basically, the party that sues has to demonstrate that it is harmed (or “injured”), that the harm is tied to or caused by the defendant and that courts can provide adequate relief or “redress” to alleviate the harm.
There have now been several lawsuits that Our Children’s Trust has brought on behalf of its youth clients against the federal government, and courts have shut the doors on nearly all of them in ruling that the plaintiffs lack standing. The most recent youth-led case filed in February challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s rescission of the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding remains pending at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Juliana case, initially filed in 2015, was just days away from trial in 2018 when the first Trump administration lodged an emergency plea for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The justices then ordered a temporary halt to proceedings that derailed the trial. A 9th Circuit Court panel subsequently took up the case and delivered a 2-1 decision that courts could not grant the sweeping relief that plaintiffs sought, which included a request to order the government to develop and implement a “climate recovery plan” to swiftly decarbonize and phase out fossil fuels. But absent that, even a simple declaration that the government’s conduct was unconstitutional would be insufficient to alleviate the plaintiffs’ climate change injuries, according to the 9th Circuit, because a declaration on its own would not stop the planet from overheating. “Rather than crediting that record, the court dismissed it as speculation.” Contrary to the Juliana case, the Lighthiser v. Trump suit more narrowly targeted specific government actions, namely the three executive orders issued by Trump at the beginning of his second term, according to youth plaintiffs and their attorneys. “The Juliana case was very much targeting 50-plus years of climate and energy policy centered around fossil fuels and subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. And we were trying to create a systemic change through the courts to try to shift our country off of fossil fuels. This [Lighthiser]case is much more specific. It targets three executive orders that the Trump administration has put in place since they took office the second time,” Avery McRae, 20, now a student at Eckerd College and a plaintiff in both the Juliana and Lighthiser cases, said in an interview.
Still, the courts thought that the case against Trump also targeted sweeping conduct and a multitude of agency actions taken pursuant to the executive orders. Blocking implementation of “hundreds of current and anticipated agency actions” through one lawsuit would be “unprecedented,” according to the 9th Circuit panel, which agreed with the District Court that the Lighthiser plaintiffs, like the Juliana plaintiffs before them, lacked standing.
Another federal youth climate case called Genesis B. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has also been tossed out by the courts on standing grounds. That case, filed in 2023 on behalf of 18 children from California, challenged a single agency (the EPA) and a single policy, the so-called discounting policy that the EPA uses in its regulatory cost-benefit analyses. Since the policy discounts or devalues the future compared to the present, the lawsuit argued that it discriminates against children who would benefit the most in the future from current regulations to rein in climate pollution. In April, the 9th Circuit Court affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the suit.
Nate Bellinger, a senior staff attorney at Our Children’s Trust, said that the 9th Circuit Court seems eager to shut the courthouse doors on youth plaintiffs bringing climate-related challenges against the government.
“I think it’s frustrating that they are putting climate cases, irrespective of their legal and factual differences, all in one bucket and saying those cases must be dismissed,” he said. “I think they’re taking a shortcut and they’re not looking at the differences between Lighthiser and Juliana and Genesis. We’ve been litigating all of those cases so we know them in and out.” McRae also expressed frustration with the 9th Circuit Court’s handling of the Lighthiser case. “It feels like the easy way out, to dismiss this case at this level,” she said.
Bellinger argued that the 9th Circuit got it wrong in characterizing the suit as a challenge to hundreds of agency actions. “It’s a challenge to three executive orders,” he said.
Bellinger also said it is concerning that because there are so many implementing actions happening under the three orders, the court thought the challenged conduct was too much to handle. “They are putting climate cases, irrespective of their legal and factual differences, all in one bucket.” “This opinion basically says to the president, if you go really big and really fast, and permit a whole bunch of fossil fuel projects and cancel a bunch of science and renewable energy development, and you do it at a dizzying pace, we’re gonna say it’s too much to challenge and we’re gonna step back and let you do it. It’s greenlighting this really dangerous trend that we’re seeing right now of just going big and going fast and the courts throwing up their hands,” he said.
“Avery and these other plaintiffs, they are standing up to a Trump administration that is very hostile toward people that stand up to it, and they are demonstrating tremendous courage,” Bellinger said. “It would be nice if the judges would do their job. The plaintiffs really deserve more than they got from this court.”
Charles Dell’Ario, a private practice attorney in California who has extensive experience litigating before the 9th Circuit Court, called the panel’s recent decision in the Lighthiser case “extremely disappointing.” He said that the panel’s issuance of an unpublished memorandum opinion was notable. “It signals, like, your case isn’t worth taking the time to write a real opinion,” he said. “Based on my knowledge of how this works, some research attorney wrote this opinion.”
“It feels as if they didn’t treat it seriously,” Dell’Ario said. “That’s as troubling as anything. To that extent, due process is in trouble.” The youth plaintiffs and their attorneys are now discussing next steps in their case against Trump, though no decision on a further appeal or a request for reconsideration has been announced.
“We’re still figuring out different pathways,” said Bellinger. He notes that the plaintiffs have expressed reactions of frustration, anger and disappointment, but also a “resolve that this is not the end of the road.”
“We intend to keep showing up until a court is willing to measure this President’s actions against the Constitution and rule on the merits. Not because we want to. Because our lives depend on it,” Eva Lighthiser wrote in a recent commentary piece published in the Daily Montanan.
McRae, for her part, said she has “no interest in throwing in the towel yet.”
“I don’t think any of us are ready to give in,” she said.
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