United States v. U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon

On July 30, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the federal government’s application for a stay of the young people’s climate change lawsuit pending in the federal district court for the District of Oregon, which is scheduled for trial beginning on October 29, 2018. The Supreme Court’s order denying the stay application said the request for relief was premature and denied the request without prejudice. The Court also noted that “[t]he breadth of respondents’ claims is striking, however, and the justiciability of those claims presents substantial grounds for difference of opinion.” The Court said the district court “should take these concerns into account in assessing the burdens of discovery and trial, as well as the desirability of a prompt ruling on the Government’s pending dispositive motions.”

After the Ninth Circuit denied the government’s second mandamus petition on July 20, the federal government indicated in a letter to the Supreme Court that the alternative course of action of construing its stay application as a petition for writ of certiorari or mandamus was “even more warranted” because “nothing relevant remains to be done in the lower courts.”

The federal government filed a stay application in the Supreme Court after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s emergency motion for a stay pending consideration of a second petition for a writ of mandamus filed by the government on July 5, 2018. The federal government asked the Supreme Court for a stay pending the Ninth Circuit’s consideration of the mandamus petition and any further proceedings in the Supreme Court, and also requested an administrative stay pending the Court’s ruling on the stay application. Alternatively, the federal government suggested that the Supreme Court could construe its application as a petition for writ of mandamus or petition for writ of certiorari from the Ninth Circuit’s March 2018 decision denying mandamus and directly order dismissal of the action or a stay pending the resolution of the federal government’s pending dispositive motions.