A group of young people are suing the Trump Administration for prioritizing the use of fossil fuels — and driving up planet-warming emissions. The suit was filed Thursday morning in a Montana federal court
The plaintiffs are twenty-two young people from across the country - including ten of the youth plaintiffs in Montana’s climate case. The state supreme court ruled in their favor last year.
They are now suing over a suite of President Trump’s policies. That includes directives to promote fossil fuel development, exempt coal plants from having to filter toxic air pollution, stop all wind energy development, and defund scientific research on climate change.
Trump says the U.S. needs to boost domestic energy production and limit regulations on industry
Livingston student Eva Lighthiser is the lead plaintiff- and one of the sixteen young people that sued the state of Montana.
“We as young people are inheriting this future that is very uncertain and it is quite scary for us, and we are doing the best that we can to protect and preserve a safe future for ourselves. And I don't think that's too much to ask," Lighthiser said.
She says the Trump administration’s actions will worsen climate change and the harms her generation faces as a result. She says these changes violate her, and the other plaintiff’s rights to life and liberty under the US Constitution.
Julia Olson is one of the lawyers on the case, and the head of the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust that’s brought these youth-led climate cases.
“The pollution from fossil fuels, in and of itself, is a danger, but it is truly threatening the life support system that these plaintiffs need to live and grow healthy," Olson said.
They are asking the court to block the Trump policies, and reinstate climate change information and monitoring across government sites. The case was filed Thursday morning at federal district court in Butte.
