The federal district court for the Central District of California granted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal defendants’ motion to dismiss youth plaintiffs’ amended complaint alleging that EPA utilization of federal policies regarding the use of discount rates in benefit-cost analysis violated the Constitution. The court said the plaintiffs based their “theory of harm” on EPA’s utilization of “Discounting Policies” (the Office of Management and Budget’s Circular No. A-4 and related EPA guidance) as part of OMB-mandated benefit-cost analyses; the plaintiffs alleged that the Discounting Policies under-weighted long-term benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in discrimination against children and in environmental harm to the plaintiffs due to failure to resolve the climate crisis. The court found the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that the environmental harms were fairly traceable to the Discounting Policies and that their alleged discrimination harms amounted to “generalized grievances” that did not constitute injury-in-fact. The court therefore dismissed the amended complaint for lack of standing. The court dismissed without leave to amend, finding that the amended complaint demonstrated that further amendment could not overcome “the structural lack of injury-in-fact and traceability” as to the plaintiffs’ claims. The court therefore dismissed without leave to amend.

California youth plaintiffs' lawsuit asserting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has violated the U.S. Constitution by allowing harmful levels of climate pollution to accumulate in the air.

Genesis B. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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California Federal Court Said Youth Plaintiffs Could Not Establish Standing for Constitutional Challenge to Federal Discounting Policies

Filed

United States of America

California

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Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

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California Federal Court Said Youth Plaintiffs Could Not Establish Standing for Constitutional Challenge to Federal Discounting Policies

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance