On March 7, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a historic generational lawsuit charging that the U.S. government failed to take sufficient action to address climate change, can go to trial. The 21 plaintiffs were 7 to 18 years old at the time the suit was filed by Our Children’s Trust in 2015.
With this unanimous ruling denying the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the case, the suit is now cleared for trial in federal district court in Eugene, Oregon. The litigation charges that the United States government “has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.” The case rests on a principle called the “the public trust doctrine,” which says that the government has a responsibility to safeguard certain public assets—in this case, a stable climate. In an earlier decision which favored the youth plaintiffs, district court Judge Ann Aiken wrote, “Exercising my ‘reasoned judgment,’ I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Jacob Lebel, one of the original plaintiffs, who’s now 21 years old. Here Lebel, who lives on a farm in southern Oregon, explains the legal challenges and outcomes, and what he and his fellow plaintiffs hope to win. [Rush transcript.]
JACOB LEBEL: So that decision by Judge Aiken was the major decision that we got; that was the question of standing: “Do we have legal standing to bring that case?” That’s where a lot of environmental cases actually fail. And we actually won that. Judge Ann Aiken of the Eugene, (Oregon) federal district court ruled that we do have standing and we can bring this case to trial. And then what happened is that the Trump administration filed with the Ninth Circuit, and it’s an obscure piece of legalese called the writ of mandamus – rarely used, it’s a desperate measure, kind of a last resort tactic. Basically, they were asking that the case not go to trial and go straight up to the Ninth Circuit court, have the Ninth Circuit immediately review the lower court’s decision, which, if you know about legal matters, is highly unusual, because the Ninth Circuit is the appellate court, and it’s supposed to overview the decision by the lower court once you’ve gone through the discovery process and gone through trial.
It’s not its job to oversee discovery or trial or whatever, it’s just supposed to review the findings once the case is developed. So we weren’t even getting the chance to develop the case and go to trial if the Trump administration had its way. What happened is the Ninth Circuit said, “Okay, we’ll review it and let you know if you can continue to trial in the lower court or we’re going to step in.” And that took a while, and we just got the decision that we got the go-ahead to go to trial, and we’re back in the district court where we should be, and we’re going to trial. But there was a delay there, and we actually went to San Francisco and had oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit court of appeals, the three-judge panel.
BETWEEN THE LINES: I know this case was originally filed against President Obama and his administration, and after Trump took office, I was in D.C. when the youth plaintiffs appeared at the U.S. Supreme Court to change the name of the suit from Juliana v Obama to Juliana v Trump, Kelsey Juliana being the lead plaintiff. Who are you expecting to have testify?
JACOB LEBEL: The case is really about the U.S. government, it’s not about particular individuals. That’s kind of the beauty of our case, in a way. I think we do need efforts targeting particular companies, agencies or individuals who are corrupt and are horribly worsening the situation for their own profit. That is great. What our case is doing is trying to achieve systemic change through the legal system, so we’re addressing decades of willful action by the U.S. government to worsen this problem of climate change by creating this fossil fuel-dependent energy system. So it’s not about Obama or Trump. That’s my first point.
However, it’s kind of striking and dramatic; I don’t know if it’s poetic justice or whatever, that Trump is one of the most – as far as fossil fuels and corruption and climate change goes – is one of the most horrific politicians that we’ve ever had in power. So if we win, it’s very fitting I think, that we’re fighting the Trump administration. There’s no ambiguity there about what the moral stakes or values are on both sides, I’d say. We’re suing all the major agencies – Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, EPA, the White House – so they’re all in there, and it all depends on what information we really need that we can’t get otherwise. I’ll say that we were trying to depose Rex Tillerson —
BETWEEN THE LINES: In his capacity as head of Exxon Mobil, right, before he became Trump’s Secretary of State.
JACOB LEBEL: All the major companies had actually filed to intervene in our case.
BETWEEN THE LINES: And after Trump took office, the companies asked to withdraw, right, so they couldn’t be deposed…
JACOB LEBEL: Yeah, they withdrew because once you enter a legal case, you can get deposed; so they basically got in to throw us out, because they thought this would be a small, easy to throw-out lawsuit, and I was in court all the times and they completely got shut down by the judges, and then the case got really serious and got a lot of press, and it was moving forward and suddenly they were going to be the ones getting deposed, and that’s when they started to freak out and filed to withdraw from the case, and the judge actually let them out, which is fine because it actually simplifies the case a lot; it’s such a big case that we appreciated them not contesting the climate science in court.
Actually, the Trump administration right now as far as the legal front goes, is not contesting the facts of climate change. Right before the Obama administration left, literally a month before, filed a document that agreed with all our assertions on the climate science, actually saying it was going to be worse in some cases than our lawyers were saying. What they disagreed on was the remedy, and the government’s historic role in that. So that’s actually factual record in court, and the Trump administration has not revoked that, and I don’t know if they still can.
BETWEEN THE LINES: What exactly is the goal of the lawsuit? What do you want to get out of it?
JACOB LEBEL: First of all, some people – I hope less people now – think there’s money involved, like money reparations or something. We’re not asking for money reparations, so that’s the first point. The second point, what we’re actually suing for is a science-based climate recovery plan. That’s the key phrase.
For more information, visit OurChildren’s Trust at ourchildrenstrust.org;ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/; on Twitter @youthgov; and the Washington State Chapter at ourchildrenstrust.org/state/washington.
