Sagoonick v. State

In a split decision, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by young Alaskans alleging that the State of Alaska’s development of its natural resources contributed to climate change and violated the Alaska Constitution’s natural resources provisions as well as their individual constitutional rights. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive relief—requests that the State stop implementing its statutory energy policy, prepare and complete and accurate accounting of Alaska’s carbon emissions, and develop an enforceable “climate recovery plan”—presented non-justiciable political questions. The Supreme Court found that the Superior Court had not erred by considering the requested relief as part of its political question analysis. The Supreme Court then followed its “sound precedent” in Kanuk—an earlier case brought by young people to compel climate action—to conclude that it could not make “the legislative policy judgments necessary to grant the requested injunctive relief.” The court further concluded that the plaintiffs’ declaratory relief claims did not necessarily present non-justiciable political questions but that the Superior Court had properly dismissed them on “prudential grounds” because they did not present an “actual controversy” that was “appropriate for judicial determination.” The Supreme Court again cited Kanuk. Although noting differences in this case, in which the plaintiffs asserted constitutional rights beyond the public trust doctrine and challenged past actions, as opposed to inaction, the Supreme Court concluded that neither distinction meant that declaratory relief “would settle the parties’ legal relations more fully than it would have in Kanuk.” The Supreme Court also upheld the Department of Environmental Conservation’s denial of the plaintiffs’ rulemaking petition, finding that the Department reasonably could conclude that the regulation sought “was inconsistent with the legislature’s statutory policies and thus outside its delegated authority.” Justice Maassen dissented, joined by Justice Carney, from the court’s “rejection of declaratory relief as serving no useful purpose.” The dissent stated the view that “a balanced consideration of prudential doctrines requires that we explicitly recognize a constitutional right to a livable climate.” Although the dissent agreed that the majority’s decision was consistent with Kanuk, Justice Maassen wrote that he was “no longer convinced that nothing can be gained by clarifying Alaskans’ constitutional rights and the State’s corresponding duties in the context of climate change.” Justice Maassen would have found that the public trust doctrine in the Alaska Constitution provided a right to a livable climate.

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