Young activists won a landmark state climate trial. Now they're
challenging Trump's orders
[September 16, 2025]
By MATTHEW BROWN
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Young climate activists and their attorneys who
won a landmark global warming trial against the state of Montana are
trying to convince a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s
executive orders promoting fossil fuels.
During a two-day hearing starting Tuesday in Missoula, Montana, the
activists and their experts plan to describe Trump’s actions to boost
drilling and mining and discourage renewable energy as a growing danger
to children and the planet. They say the Republican's stoking of global
warming violates their constitutional rights.
A victory for the activists would have far broader implications than
their 2023 win, where a state court faulted officials for permitting
oil, gas and coal projects without regard for global warming.
But legal experts say the young activists and their lawyers from the
environmental group Our Children’s Trust face longer odds in federal
court. The Montana case hinged on a provision in the state constitution
declaring people have a “right to a clean and healthful environment.”
That language is absent from the U.S. Constitution.
"Federal law doesn't really offer anything to really work with for these
groups," said David Dana, a professor at Northwestern University Law
School in Chicago.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and 19 states plus Guam
want Judge Dana Christensen to dismiss the case.
A previous federal climate lawsuit in Oregon from Our Children's Trust
went on for a decade and ended in a denial this year from the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Our Children's Trust attorney Andrea Rodgers said the Constitution
contains protections for life and liberty that cannot be ignored.
“We’re asking the Court to apply traditional laws with respect to what
constitutes the right to life and the right for liberty,” Rodgers said.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Trump had ended the
preferential treatment given to some sectors of the energy industry
under his predecessor.
“President Trump declared an energy emergency on day one in the best
interest of the American people to protect our economic and national
security. He will continue to unleash American energy,” Rogers said in
an email.
The 22 plaintiffs include youths and young adults from Montana and
several other states.
A 19-year-old from California plans to testify to Christensen about the
harms of wildfire smoke. A 17-year-old from Montana is slated to speak
about Trump frustrating her attempts to get electric buses for her
school. And a 20-year-old Oregon woman going to school in Florida will
talk about how Trump’s plans could result in worse hurricanes and
wildfires.
"No matter where I live, I cannot escape extreme climate events
resulting from fossil fuel pollution,” Avery McRae, the student from
Oregon, said in a court declaration.
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Plaintiffs in a climate lawsuit brought by children and young adults
in Montana listen to arguments during a May 12, 2023, court hearing
in Helena, Mont. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, file)/
It’s a similar playbook as the 2023 trial: Young plaintiffs spent
days describing how worsening fires foul the air they breathe, while
drought and decreased snowpack deplete rivers that sustain farming,
fish, wildlife and recreation.
Another legal win by Our Children's Trust also came out of state
court. Children and teens in Hawaii last year reached a historic
settlement that included a requirement to decarbonize the state’s
transportation system over the next 21 years.
Only a few other states, including Illinois, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts and New York, have environmental protections enshrined
in their constitutions.
Carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burned,
traps heat in the atmosphere and is largely responsible for the
warming of the climate.
Amanda Braynack, communications director for Montana Attorney
General Austin Knudsen, said the states were trying to prevent the
litigants from “destroying our country's energy security.”
Attorneys for the federal government and states are expected to
deliver arguments but not call any witnesses.
Even if the activists lose, it could draw attention to Trump's
perceived failures to act against climate change, said Jonathan
Adler, a climate law expert at William and Mary Law School in
Virginia.
“These cases have always been about not just what occurs in the
court of law, but also in the court of public opinion,” Adler said.
Montana's Supreme Court last year upheld the 2023 trial outcome,
which required officials to more closely analyze climate-warming
emissions. To date that's yielded few meaningful changes in a state
dominated by Republicans.
Montana utility regulators this month turned down a petition from
environmentalists who wanted climate change considertions to play a
bigger role in state Public Service Commission decisions.
Gov. Greg Gianforte told The Associated Press Montana needs more
electricity including from fossil fuels.
“We have an obligation to our constitution and just morally to
protect the environment, he said. ”But I don’t think that’s
inconsistent with electricity production, and we need to be using
fossil fuels coal, gas, oil, hydro, wind and potentially nuclear.”
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