Some of the country’s youngest climate activists took a hit in court this week. But they say they aren’t backing down. 

22 plaintiffs, between ages 11 and 20, filed a federal lawsuit over three climate and energy executive orders from President Donald Trump. They argued that the orders violated their constitutional rights.  

The three orders declared a “national energy emergency,” ordered federal government agencies to “unleash” American energy, and aimed to revive the “beautiful clean coal industry.” 

This week, a federal judge “reluctantly” dismissed the case — but the fight isn’t over. Julia Olson, founder of Our Children’s Trust and lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the group plans to appeal the ruling.

In the 31-page decision, Judge Dana Christensen said that the Lighthiser v. Trump case — named for 19-year-old Livingston resident and lead plaintiff Eva Lighthiser — lacked a legal basis for the case. He described the case as too broad in scope and too amorphous to be actionable. 

He wrote that the case was similar to Juliana v. United States, a landmark case filed in 2015. A judge ultimately dismissed it after years of legal wrangling. 

“Plaintiffs are effectively asking that this court order the United States to return to the environmental policy of the previous administration,” the judge wrote. “This is, quite simply, an unworkable request for which plaintiffs provide no precedent.” 

Still, Christensen acknowledged the reality the plaintiffs face. He said they showed “overwhelming evidence” that climate change is affecting them and will worsen because of Trump’s orders.  

“The judge recognized that the government’s fossil fuel directives are injuring these youth but said his hands were tied by precedent,” Olson said.  

She noted that the group plans to appeal because the courts “cannot offer more protection to fossil fuel companies seeking to preserve their profits than to young Americans seeking to preserve their rights.” 

The ruling came after two days of hearings in Missoula last month, where two plaintiffs with severe lung conditions testified on the health impacts of wildfire smoke and coal dust. They also called upon expert witnesses, who predicted long-lasting damage from Trump’s energy and environment positions. 

20-year-old plaintiff Avery McRae spoke about caring for a pet horse during the wildfire season in her Oregon hometown, and escaping hurricanes in Florida, where she is a college student. 

“I don’t even know what my future looks like,” McRae said in the testimony. 

Many of the activists who filed the suit were also plaintiffs in the 2023 landmark Held vs. Montana case — the nation’s first trial where plaintiffs successfully argued that climate change violated their rights under the state constitution. 

A judge ruled in Held that the young plaintiffs have a “fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.”  

Lewis and Clark District Court Judge Kathy Seeley explicitly stated in her ruling that the state’s greenhouse gas emissions are “proven to be a substantial factor in causing climate impacts to Montana’s environment, and harm and injury to the youth plaintiffs.” Her decision rolled back two laws that changed the Montana Environmental Policy Act. 

I’m Katie Bartlett, here with today’s roundup.