Held v. State

In a lawsuit filed by youth plaintiffs in March 2020, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed a trial court’s 2023 decision holding that the Montana Constitution protects the right to a stable climate system and that a provision of the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) restricting consideration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and corresponding climate change impacts in environmental reviews violated that right. First, the Supreme Court held that a stable climate system is “clearly within the object and true principles of the Framers inclusion of the right to a clean and healthful environment” in the Montana Constitution. The court rejected the State’s arguments that because the framers did not specifically discuss climate change or other global issues, they could not have intended for the right to include environmental degradation resulting from climate change. The court cited precedent describing the Montana Constitution’s right to a clean and healthful environment as “forward-looking and preventative” and concluded that the right should apply to pollutants not in existence or fully understood at the time of the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention. The Supreme Court also noted that the plaintiffs had shown that climate change has impacted environmental resources identified by the framers and that the trial court had made “extensive, undisputed findings of fact that GHG emissions are drastically altering and degrading Montana’s climate, rivers, lakes, groundwater, atmospheric waters, forests, glaciers, fish, wildlife, air quality, and ecosystem.” Second, the Montana Supreme Court rejected arguments that the youth plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the MEPA provision’s constitutionality. The court found that the plaintiffs showed “a sufficient personal stake in their inalienable right to a clean and healthful environment” with their definitive showing at trial of climate change’s “serious and irreversible harms” to Montana’s environment and their allegation that the statute infringed on that right by prohibiting consideration of projects’ GHG emissions. Regarding the causation and redressability prongs of standing, the court concluded that while the statute might be “only a small contributor to climate change generally, and declaring it unconstitutional will do little to reverse climate change,” the harm to the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights would be alleviated by declaring the statute unconstitutional and enjoining the State from acting in accordance with it. Third, the Montana Supreme Court found that the MEPA prohibition on considering GHG emissions had to be analyzed under strict scrutiny because it “clearly implicates” the right to a clean and healthful environment. The court ruled that even if the State defendants had a compelling interest in balancing private property rights with that right, the State did not show that the statute was narrowly tailored to this interest. The Supreme Court also found that State failed to show that the trial court abused its discretion in finding no good cause to grant the State’s motion requesting psychological evaluations of eight of the plaintiffs. The court said it was not necessary to resolve the issue of whether the plaintiffs put mental health “in controversy” because, among other factors, the question of standing was resolved based on injury to the plaintiffs’ constitutional right “rather than to any mental, emotional, physical, aesthetic, or property interests harmed by the State’s actions.” A dissenting justice would have ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they alleged “an abstract injury that is indistinguishable from that to the public as a whole and is not legally concrete to them personally” and, furthermore, had not shown that the MEPA restrictions caused the constitutional harm.

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The Montana Supreme Court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied the State of Montana and other State appellants’ (State’s) motion to stay the trial court’s judgment that youth plaintiffs’ rights under the Montana Constitution were violated by a provision of the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) that prohibited consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in environmental reviews. The Supreme Court found that the State did not meet its burden of demonstrating good cause for relief from the denial of the stay. Regarding the first factor for a stay—whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits—the Supreme Court noted that the State had not made an argument to support its contention that the State “only needed to demonstrate that the case involves novel and unsettled legal questions.” Regarding the second factor concerning irreparable harm to the State, the Supreme Court found that the State did not explain “why it believes it would be exceedingly burdensome to reimplement methods for greenhouse gas and climate impacts analysis when it had previously done so” in MEPA reviews. The Supreme Court also found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to address whether enjoining a state from enacting legislation constitutes irreparable harm, an argument the State did not make before the trial court. Regarding the third factor, which concerns harms to other parties, the Supreme Court noted that the State did not address the trial court’s reasoning that loss of a constitutional right constitutes an irreparable injury and instead argued that the plaintiffs would not suffer harm because the State would continue to issue permits for fossil fuel projects regardless of whether a stay was in place. The Supreme Court said this failed to meet the State’s burden of showing abuse of discretion. With respect to the fourth factor—where the public interest lies—the Supreme Court found that where each side asserted “a valid public interest,” it could not conclude that the trial court abused its discretion. Two justices would have granted the motion for stay.

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