In this July 18, 2018, file photo, lawyers and youth plaintiffs line up behind a banner after a hearing before U.S. federal district court Judge Ann Aiken between lawyers for the Trump administration and the so-called Climate Kids in Federal Court in Eugene, Ore.Chris Pietsch/The Associated Press
A U.S. federal appeals court has thrown out the landmark climate change lawsuit brought on behalf of young people against the federal government.
While the young plaintiffs “have made a compelling case that action is needed,” wrote Judge Andrew Hurwitz in a 32-page opinion, climate change is not an issue for the courts. “Reluctantly, we conclude that such relief is beyond our constitutional power. Rather, the plaintiffs’ impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government.”
The two members in the majority of the three-judge panel thus agreed with the Trump administration that the issues brought up in the case, Juliana v. United States, did not belong before the courts.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses an earlier ruling by a district court judge, Ann Aiken, who would have let the case go forward. Instead, the appeals court gave instructions to the lower court to dismiss the case.
In a lengthy and impassioned dissent, Judge Josephine Staton wrote that “the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response — yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses.”
The third judge on the panel was Mary H. Murguia. All three were appointed to their current positions by President Barack Obama.
Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division said the government was “pleased with the outcome.”
The lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Julia Olson, said she would appeal the ruling. The next step sends the case to the full 9th Circuit for reconsideration and what is known as an en banc hearing.
Julia Olson, an environmental lawyer with the group Our Children’s Trust, originally filed the federal suit in 2015 against the Obama administration, demanding the government drop policies that encouraged fossil fuel use and take faster action to curb climate change from a president already seen as friendly to environmental interests.
Working under a legal principle known as the public trust doctrine, which can be used to compel the government to preserve natural resources for public use, the initial complaint stated that government officials had “willfully ignored” the dangers of burning fossil fuels.