After a federal judge dismissed a landmark climate lawsuit brought by 18 California children against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the young plaintiffs plan to amend and refile their allegations, their attorneys say.
Children, who lost their homes in wildfires, suffered health problems from breathing polluted air, lost weeks of education due to climate change-related school closures and were forced to ration tap water due to unprecedented droughts, They sued the EPA for allegedly violating their constitutional rights. rights by allowing pollution from burning fossil fuels to continue despite knowing the harm it poses to children.
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Judge Michael Fitzgerald of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled this month that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue because they failed to show how the remedies they sought would be applied, including a declaratory judgment that their constitutional rights had been violated. mitigate those damages.
“Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate how a statement of plaintiffs' rights under the Constitution and the legality of defendants' conduct, alone, can remedy these alleged harms,” he wrote. The ruling granted the plaintiffs permission to amend their lawsuit by May 20.
The co-executive director of Our Children's Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit law firm that represents the plaintiffs and has filed similar lawsuits in other states, called the order unfair and said attorneys would file an amended complaint.
“When presented with a constitutional violation, there is no reason for a federal judge to give up and say nothing can be done,” Mat dos Santos, general counsel for Our Children's Trust, said in a statement. “By doing just that, this order tells children that judges have no power to hear their complaints. In fact, the courts have that power.”
The lawsuit (Genesis B. v. EPA, filed in December on behalf of plaintiffs who were ages 8 to 17 at the time) calls climate change “the single largest driver of the health of every child born today.” It alleges that the EPA has intentionally allowed the United States to become one of the world's largest contributors to the crisis, despite releasing report after report detailing its harms, particularly to children.
When the EPA conducts economic analyzes to decide how much pollution to allow in the future, it places less value on children's lives because they don't generate revenue, plaintiffs' attorneys say. The agency also applies discount rates that place less value on future benefits from pollution control than they do today, according to attorneys, who say these practices discriminate against children.
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In addition to the EPA, the lawsuit also names EPA Administrator Michael Regan and the US federal government as defendants.
Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice had asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing in part that the court did not have the authority to make sweeping changes in public policy.
At a hearing earlier this month, Fitzgerald said he was inclined to side with the government, noting that these decisions should rest with Congress and the executive branch.
“There are ways everyone can express their political opinions,” Fitzgerald said, noting that as a child he volunteered for an elected official.
In his ruling last week, Fitzgerald compared the case to Juliana v. US, another climate action, filed in federal court in Oregon, in which 21 young plaintiffs alleged that the government violated their constitutional rights by promoting the use of fossil fuels despite knowing their harms. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month ordered the district court to dismiss that case, saying the declaratory relief the plaintiffs sought would likely not mitigate the injuries they claimed they suffered.
