Appeals Court Rejects Oregon-Linked Youth Climate Lawsuit

Thousands of young people attended a Climate Strike in Portland last September. Blar Stenvick

An Oregon-linked lawsuit that sought to hold the United States government accountable for climate change won’t move forward. On Friday morning, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Juliana v. United States—a case named for lead plaintiff Kelsey Juliana, a current University of Oregon student.

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Juliana filed the case in 2015, when she was just 15 years old, and was joined by 20 other young people as co-plaintiffs. The case, filed with the help of Oregon-based advocacy group Our Children’s Trust, argued that the federal government was largely responsible for the devastating effects of climate change, thanks to its lax environmental regulations. The case sought to force US federal agencies to change all policies and practices that contribute to climate change.

A panel of three appeals judges heard arguments for the case in Portland last July, after the case had already been dismissed by the US Supreme Court in 2018. The Mercury reported on the oral arguments at the time:

The 21 youth plaintiffs were represented by Julia Olson, the executive director and chief legal counsel for environmental justice organization Our Children’s Trust. Olson’s main argument rested on the idea that the constitutional rights at stake in Juliana v. US have already been recognized in the 5th Amendment, which states that no person can be denied “life, liberty, or property” without due process. Olson also argued that climate change was a “state-created danger,” because the federal government “subsidizes and promotes” the fossil fuel industry. She added that while young people are not a federally protected class, the Supreme Court has set the precedent that when the federal government values the interests of adults over those of children, that can amount to discrimination. By allowing climate change to progress, Olson reasoned, the government had valued adults over younger generations who will have to live with the consequences.

In Friday’s decision to dismiss the case, Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz wrote that the Juliana plaintiffs’ demands for the federal government would “necessarily require a host of complex policy decisions entrusted to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches,” and that a court might not be the appropriate venue for determining those policy decisions.

“The panel reluctantly concluded that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large,” Hurwitz wrote.

Judge Josephine L. Staton wrote the dissenting opinion. She disagreed with Hurwitz’s reasoning that the court wouldn’t be useful in changing environmental policies, arguing that “courts serve as the ultimate backstop” when sorting out legal issues that are also politically controversial.

“As the last fifty years have made clear,” Staton wrote, “telling plaintiffs that they must vindicate their right to a habitable United States through the political branches will rightfully be perceived as telling them they have no recourse.”