Montana Environmental Information Center v. Montana Department of Environmental Quality

The Montana Supreme Court held that the 2021 version of the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) required the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to analyze greenhouse gas emissions as part of the air quality permitting process for the Laurel Generating Station, a natural gas-fired power plant that was completed and went into operation in 2024. The Supreme Court concluded that even if the lack of substantive permitting standards for greenhouse gases affected DEC’s authority to deny the permit, MEPA’s procedural requirements required DEQ to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions within Montana. The opinion noted that regulation of air pollutants “falls squarely within DEQ’s authority” under the Montana Clean Air Act and that although the Court’s decision in <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/11091/https://climatecasechart.com/case/11091/">Held v. State</a> did not require DEQ to analyze greenhouse gas emissions for every potential state action or to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in an air quality permit application, consideration of greenhouse gases was required in this case, “which undisputedly involves a significant amount of CO2e emissions (nearly 770,000 tons annually) from a fossil fuel Electric Generating Unit and generated hundreds of public concerns regarding potential impacts from those emissions.” The Supreme Court also agreed with the district court that DEQ took a hard look at noise impacts and that the lack of analysis of lighting impacts was arbitrary and capricious. The Supreme Court reversed, however, the district court’s vacatur of the permit, finding that the district court had failed to analyze factors as required for the granting of equitable relief. Two justices concurred in the reversal of the vacatur of the permit but would have ruled that the case was moot. Two justices dissented from the reversal of the vacatur.