Clean Air Council v. United States

The federal district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit brought by Clean Air Council and two minors seeking to block the Trump administration’s climate change deregulatory efforts on the grounds that they violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. The court concluded that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the plaintiffs’ claims because neither Clean Air Council nor the individual plaintiffs had established standing. Regarding Clean Air Council, the court found that neither the complaint nor an affidavit submitted by the plaintiffs included specific harms suffered by the organization’s members. With respect to the individuals, the court found that while their alleged physical harms constituted particularized and concrete injuries, the injuries were not imminent or certain. The court further found that the alleged injuries could not be traced to the regulatory rollbacks and that a favorable decision by the court would not redress the injuries. In addition, the court said that prudential considerations regarding the separation of powers precluded jurisdiction. In the alternative, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to state a viable claim. The court said there was no legally cognizable due process right to environmental quality, rejecting the plaintiffs’ argument that the right to a life-sustaining climate system was a liberty interest guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The court said the District of Oregon’s decision to the contrary in Juliana “certainly contravened or ignored longstanding authority.” The court also found that the plaintiffs’ claim did not meet the requirements for a state-created danger claim and that the plaintiffs had not stated a claim of invasion of their due process right to property. In addition, the court held that the Ninth Amendment did not provide substantive rights to sustain the plaintiffs’ action, and that the public trust claim had no basis in law.

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