Youth climate change case challenging Alaska LNG project dismissed, marking the latest kids’ loss
The $44 billion gas project has seen renewed interest as Trump pressures countries to buy more American energy
A youth-led climate change lawsuit against Alaska that sought to block the $44 billion gas project has become the latest legal casualty of the year, after a state judge refused to second-guess the government’s decision to back the development.
Superior Court Judge Dani Crosby in Anchorage ruled that the request from the group of teens and 20-somethings was barred by the “political doctrine” and deferred to the state’s constitutional right to manage its own natural resources.
She said state precedent is clear that the Alaska legislature is within its right to greenlight the so-called Alaska LNG project. The proposed 800-mile pipeline system has seen renewed interest from potential liquefied natural gas (LNG) customers in Asia as President Donald Trump has pressured countries to buy more American energy under the threat of tariffs.
Andrew Welle, the lead attorney for the Alaskan youth with the firm Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement that Crosby’s decision was “a clear miscarriage of justice with enormous implications.”
He vowed to appeal the case, which argues the state’s backing of the project violates the youth’s due process and other state constitutional protections because it will hurt their health and futures by causing the release of greenhouse gases.
“Today’s decision eviscerates these protections by placing not only the Alaska LNG Project but all natural resource management decisions beyond review by Alaska’s Courts, upending decades of precedent,” Welle said.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, the public corporation that is in charge of the project, said that “Alaska LNG has withstood a rigorous multi-year federal permitting process and court challenges” because it has “significant” environmental and economic benefits.
The decision marked at least the third time that youth-led climate change lawsuits have suffered major setbacks this year, despite a major settlement with Hawaii last year and a big win in Montana state court in 2023.
Last month, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the earlier dismissal of a youth-led lawsuit that said the state’s longstanding approval of fossil fuel projects contributes to climate change and violates the youths’ fundamental constitutional and public trust rights.
Also last month, a California federal judge dismissed another youth-led lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Our Children’s Trust said the decision disregarded “key evidence” showing the harmful effects of EPA’s permitting of fossil fuel projects that release climate-warming pollutants.
The plaintiffs argue that youth are particularly susceptible to climate-related health effects like asthma from wildfires or pollution, water-borne illnesses and other concerns, and that climate change impacts their ability to lead healthy lives.
Those decisions add to previous losses for the youth in the most famous case, the landmark Juliana v. United States. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year instructed an Oregon federal court to dismiss that case after earlier determining the youth lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, since the courts could not issue an order forcing government policy.
The youth have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider that case, and the justices are set to consider whether to take up the case later this month.
Dan Farber, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Landmark that the Supreme Court petition “raises some reasonable questions about the Ninth Circuit’s decision to intervene in the case before trial.”
“But as a realistic matter, I don't see any likelihood that the Supreme Court will overturn that decision,” he said, adding that he is “sure the conservative justices are deeply skeptical of the merits of the plaintiffs' constitutional argument.”