{"id":1182865,"date":"2023-08-17T12:50:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T12:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/08\/joe-biden-justice-department-climate-crisis-constitutional-right-julianna-v-us\/"},"modified":"2023-08-17T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T12:53:46","slug":"joe-bidens-doj-is-claiming-there-is-no-constitutional-right-to-a-stable-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/17\/joe-bidens-doj-is-claiming-there-is-no-constitutional-right-to-a-stable-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden\u2019s DOJ Is Claiming \u201cThere Is No Constitutional Right to a Stable Climate\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

In the same week large swaths of the US were under extreme heat warnings, Joe Biden\u2019s Justice Department filed its most recent motion to dismiss a landmark climate case by arguing that nothing in the Constitution guarantees the right to a secure climate.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n A heat advisory sign is shown along US highway 190 during a heat wave in Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, California, on July 16, 2023. (Ronda Churchill \/ AFP via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

As a heat wave scorched America with record-breaking temperatures this June, the Biden administration attempted to block a landmark climate lawsuit by declaring that \u201cthere is no constitutional right to a stable climate system,\u201d according to court<\/a>\u00a0records<\/a> reviewed by the\u00a0Lever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The assertion in\u00a0Juliana v. United States<\/em> \u2014 which echoed both the Donald Trump and Barack Obama administrations\u2019 legal claims in the same long-running case \u2014 was part of the Justice Department\u2019s latest attempt to halt the suit brought by children who assert<\/a> that the Constitution requires the federal government to maintain a climate that supports human life.<\/p>\n

That suit\u2019s momentum could be bolstered by a\u00a0separate legal victory<\/a>\u00a0in Montana this week, but neither the victory nor the intensifying climate disaster appear to have stopped the Biden administration\u2019s crusade to kill the federal case. Indeed, Biden\u2019s Justice Department filed its most recent motion to dismiss the case in the\u00a0same week<\/a>\u00a0that large swaths of the country were under extreme heat warnings.<\/p>\n

That filing came as President Joe Biden has refused repeated calls to declare a climate emergency, and as his administration backed<\/a>\u00a0a court case designed to accelerate the construction of a massive fossil gas pipeline, despite scientists\u2019 climate warnings. Biden\u2019s administration has also\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u2019s scientific report about climate change \u201cdoes not present sufficient cause” to halt a massive expansion of fossil fuel drilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is deeply disheartening to see the Biden administration claim that Americans have \u2018no constitutional right to a stable climate,\u2019\u201d Julia Olson, lead counsel for the Juliana\u00a0<\/em>plaintiffs, told the\u00a0Lever<\/em>. \u201cWhen President Biden ran for office, he promised America\u2019s youth that he would take bold action to combat climate change, but instead the United States is leading the world on producing fossil fuels, the very thing that is furthering climate change. Instead of fighting these young people at every turn, the US Department of Justice should let youth have their day in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The effort to halt the\u00a0Juliana\u00a0<\/em>suit is also supported by Republicans bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry. In 2021, a group of Republican attorneys general tried<\/a>\u00a0unsuccessfully<\/a> to intervene as defendants in the case. Top donors last election cycle to the Republican Attorneys General Association, the state officials\u2019 campaign and policy hub, included the oil giant Koch Industries ($885,000), the fossil fuel lobby American Petroleum Institute ($175,000), and oil and gas companies Valero Energy and ExxonMobil ($125,000 apiece), according to data from Political MoneyLine.<\/p>\n

In the Biden administration\u2019s June 22\u00a0court filing<\/a>, Justice Department lawyers argued that because the child plaintiffs are not the only people who will be harmed by ecological breakdown, the suit should be thrown out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state of the climate is a public and generalized issue, and so interests in the climate are unlike the particularized personal liberty or personal privacy interests of individuals the Supreme Court has previously recognized as being protected by fundamental rights,\u201d the Justice Department wrote.<\/p>\n

The federal case, which is being spearheaded by the nonprofit public interest law firm Our Children\u2019s Trust, asserts that the US Constitution requires the government to combat the climate crisis and stop<\/a>\u00a0promulgating policies, like fossil fuel subsidies, that are intensifying the crisis in order to protect Americans\u2019 right to life. Similar cases are now unfolding in state courts across the country, where plaintiffs argue that state constitutions enshrine similar rights to a livable climate.<\/p>\n

This week, a Montana court\u00a0ruled in favor<\/a> of children in that state in a lawsuit that claimed the state\u2019s process for approving fossil fuel permits violated the Montana state constitution.<\/p>\n

It was the first time in the United States that a youth-backed climate change lawsuit has gone to trial. State District Judge Kathy Seeley wrote in her opinion, \u201cEvery additional ton of [greenhouse gas] emissions exacerbates plaintiffs\u2019 injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also noted that state residents \u201chave a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Hawaii\u2019s Supreme Court similarly\u00a0recognized<\/a>\u00a0that the state constitution\u2019s \u201cright to a clean and healthful environment\u201d includes \u201cthe right to a life-sustaining climate system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

\u201cIt Is as If an Asteroid Were Barreling Toward Earth\u201d<\/h2>\n \n

The\u00a0Juliana<\/em> case was originally filed in 2015 by twenty-one young plaintiffs, who sued the Obama administration in Eugene, Oregon, federal court for pursuing fossil fuel expansion policies while knowing the efforts threatened the habitability of the planet. President Obama\u2019s attorneys fought the suit, urging the court in 2015 to \u201creject plaintiffs\u2019 claim to a fundamental constitutional right to be free of CO2 emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, Oregon district court judge Ann Aiken allowed the case to move forward, ruling<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cI have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Donald Trump\u2019s election, his justice department repeatedly tried to have the case tossed out,\u00a0arguing<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthere is no constitutional right to a \u2018stable climate system.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020, a federal appeals court panel sided with the Trump administration and dismissed the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

US district court judge Josephine Staton dissented<\/a>, writing, \u201cIn these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response \u2014 yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in June 2023, Aiken revived the case in Oregon by ruling that an amended version of the plaintiffs\u2019 complaint could proceed to trial. Since then, the Biden Justice Department has filed multiple motions to\u00a0dismiss<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0delay<\/a>\u00a0the case, repeatedly arguing, among other things, that nothing in the Constitution guarantees the right to a secure climate.<\/p>\n

The case is expected to go to trial next June in Oregon.<\/p>\n

Youth climate lawsuits are also moving through state courts in Utah, Virginia, and Hawaii. On August 3, a Honolulu judge\u00a0set<\/a> a June 2024 trial date for the latter case \u2014 just days before wildfires began to rage through Maui.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the\u00a0Lever<\/i>, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a heat wave scorched America with record-breaking temperatures this June, the Biden administration attempted to block a landmark climate lawsuit by declaring that \u201cthere is no constitutional right to a stable climate system,\u201d according to court\u00a0records reviewed by the\u00a0Lever. The assertion in\u00a0Juliana v. United States \u2014 which echoed both the Donald Trump and Barack [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1777,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1777"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182924,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182865\/revisions\/1182924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}