Sixteen youth plaintiffs are suing the state of Montana for their right to access a clean and healthful environment in a case scheduled to go to trial next year.
Attorneys for the Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust, the Western Environmental Law Center and Kalispell-based McGarvey Law representing the kids announced the trial date this week. The group says in Held v. Montana that the state’s support of fossil fuels has contributed to climate change.
According to University of Montana law professor Anthony Johnstone, broad climate change challenges like this one are rare, but they have become more common in recent years.
“Almost all of them have failed for one reason or the other," he said, "so this would be the first one in Montana, and possibly the first one in the nation, to get as far as a trial.”
According to Our Children's Trust, the trial will be the first youth climate trial in U.S. history.
Johnstone said the lawsuit is unlike similar lawsuits because Montana’s constitution expressly protects a clean and healthful environment — but he acknowledged that the lawsuit still has a long way to go.
The Montana Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to MTPR’s request for comment.
The two-week trial is set to begin February 6, 2023.
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