MONTANA TAKES THE STAND — Montanans were treated yesterday to the novel sight of state bureaucrats defending their constitutional right to permit fossil fuel projects. The case, Held v. Montana, is the first of its kind to make it to trial in the United States and could serve as a bellwether for other efforts to hold governments and industries to account for their role in warming the planet, as Lesley Clark reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Monday's oral arguments were Montana officials' chance to push back on a week of testimony from young plaintiffs who argue that the state's constitution requires agencies to take climate change into account. Enacted in 1972 amid a national wave of environmental awareness, the document puts the right to a "clean and healthful environment" right at the top — ahead of freedom of religion and speech. Officials argued Monday that they're just following the law, including a new one that bars them from considering the effects of climate change on projects. They said the Montana Environmental Policy Act that the youth are challenging doesn't have the regulatory teeth that would allow the state to reject projects under it. “We have no right ... not to follow the law,” said Chris Dorrington, director of the state's Department of Environmental Quality, adding that his department “does not have the authority to not permit something that fully complies with the law.” State officials got a little testy at the plaintiffs' assertion that Montana has never turned down a fossil fuel project. “I do take some offense at an insinuation that the folks at DEQ are simply putting their stamp of approval on any application that rolls in the door,” said Sonja Nowakowski, the state’s air, energy and mining division administrator. “These are very robust permitting processes. These people thrive on poking holes in applications and making sure they meet the letter of the law.” The mere fact that the trial is happening is the real news here. State lawmakers have insulated regulators pretty well from it, via the law they passed this spring barring consideration of climate change in evaluating projects. (The activists say it was aimed at weakening their case.) Still, legal experts are closely watching the two-week trial and say a decision on behalf of the young people could provide compelling precedent for future lawsuits that seek to prod governments to do more about climate change. And it comes as a separate set of climate liability challenges filed by cities and states against the oil and gas industry are poised to advance after years of procedural wrangling in the Supreme Court and elsewhere. Click on all the links above for Lesley's exhaustive coverage of the case, on location in Helena. A fly fisher, a competitive Nordic skier, a fifth-generation cattle rancher: Meet the 16 youth plaintiffs leading the challenge.
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