standing
Smoke But No Fire
No, the draft Supreme Court abortion decision doesn’t threaten the standing of environmental groups
The implications for environmental law are far from being the most important aspect of the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade. The aggressiveness of the opinion in the Dobbs case signals a kind of activism that is definitely worrisome in other areas. At the end of last week, however, there …
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CONTINUE READING1990: The Year the Courts Discovered Climate Change
Cases were few, but one judge was years ahead of her time.
In an earlier post, I tried to figure out when the legal academy first discovered climate changes. As it turns out, it was almost a decade later when the federal courts took notice. Those first climate change cases shed light on how new issues get litigated and how courts respond to new science. My research …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Contributors Matt Lifson, Camila Bustos, and Natasha Brunstein: Redressability of Climate Change Injuries after Juliana
Juliana Litigation’s Disappointing Result Leaves Room for Future Climate Plaintiffs to Allege Redressable Injuries
In the landmark Juliana litigation, the youth plaintiffs sought a judicial decree telling the federal government to develop and implement a plan to do its part to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350 ppm. The Ninth Circuit dismissed Juliana, holding that the youth plaintiffs’ constitutional and public trust claims were not redressable by an Article …
CONTINUE READINGGuest Contributors Rosa Hayes and Samantha Peltz: Silver Linings in the 9th Circuit’s Juliana Decision
Juliana Litigation Provides Clues for Establishing Standing in Future Cases
For many aspiring environmental litigators, such as ourselves, the bold Juliana litigation was the little-case-that-could: it presented a novel constitutional theory to redress the climate crisis, survived a motion to dismiss against all odds, and went up to the Supreme Court not once, but twice. But on January 17, 2020, Juliana hit a significant roadblock …
CONTINUE READINGDeciding a Climate Case in the Shadow of the Supreme Court
Juliana Judges Surely Had The Higher Court in Mind in Drafting Their Decision
The irony of the Ninth Circuit decision dismissing the Juliana v. United States case this week is plain to see. Two branches of government — the legislative and executive – have failed to act to address an environmental problem that may cause the destruction of the federal government itself. The third branch, the judiciary, recognizes the …
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CONTINUE READINGDoes the Future Have Standing?
Climate change may devastate future generations. Is there a way to get their interests before the courts?
Climate change is not just a long-range problem; it’s one that will get much worse in the future unless major emissions cuts are made. For instance, sea levels will continue to rise for centuries. But the people who will be harmed by these changes can’t go to court: they haven’t been born yet. How can …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat’s Wrong with Juliana (and What’s Right?)
The odds against the “children’s case” are bad and getting worse. But there’s a valid insight at its core.
Juliana v. United States, often called the “children’s case,” is an imaginative effort to make the federal government responsible for its role in promoting the production and use of fossil fuels and its failure to control carbon emissions. They ask the court to “declare the United States’ current environmental policy infringes their fundamental rights, direct the …
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CONTINUE READINGNews Flash: 10th Cir. Rebukes Government Over Coal Leases
Today’s important ruling on standing, public lands, and climate change
In an important ruling this morning, the Tenth Circuit rejected the government’s assertion that it could ignore carbon emissions tied to renewing coal leases. In WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, the court also rejected the mining company’s attack on the standing of environmental groups to raise this claim.The mines in question are in the Powder River …
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CONTINUE READINGTurnabout is Fair Play
The same tools that have been used to stymie the Obama Administration can be turned against Trump.
Conservatives and industry have perfected some legal tools to block regulation by the Obama Administration. Those tools can be turned against them, by using the same tools to block anti-regulatory moves by the Trump Administration. As a professor, I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. But as a lawyer, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them …
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CONTINUE READINGStatutory Standing After the Spokeo Decision
A non-environmental case opens the door to new arguments about standing.
One of the recurring questions in standing law is the extent to which Congress can change the application of the standing doctrine. A recent Supreme Court opinion in a non-environmental case sheds some light – not a lot, but some – on this recurring question. The Court has made it clear that there is a …
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