A federal judge has ruled to dismiss an equal protection climate case brought by 18 young plaintiffs led by a Long Beach teenager who are challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly harming children’s health and welfare over decades, court papers obtained Wednesday show.
The case alleged the EPA “intentionally allows” planet-warming pollution to come from the sources it regulates, such as vehicles and heavy-duty trucks, power plants, and oil and gas wells. Plaintiffs further contend the agency allows climate pollution “despite knowing the harm it causes to children’s health and welfare.” The lawsuit was filed two years ago in Los Angeles federal court.
In his order Tuesday granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss, U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald determined, among other things, that the plaintiffs failed to show that the EPA’s policies discriminate against children.
“These climate related harms will be experienced relatively equally by all people — both in the United States and around the world — who are alive at the time of their impacts,” the judge wrote. “Present-day children will age and become adults, and new children will be born. Indeed, much of the harm that will allegedly befall the plaintiffs will occur when they are adults.”
An EPA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to supporting young people in climate cases, which filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs, said Fitzgerald’s “extraordinary decision” to dismiss the case disregarded key evidence showing the harmful effects of the EPA’s policies and the unique vulnerability of children’s bodies to climate pollution.
“By dismissing this case, the court is turning a blind eye to the real-world harms youth are enduring right now,” Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
“Wildfires are ravaging these children’s communities in California, but the court claims that their suffering is too ‘indirect’ to matter,” she said. “This ruling is nothing short of judicial dereliction in the face of a climate emergency. The court refused to consider that the government’s devaluation of children isn’t just bad policy — it’s a violation of fundamental equal rights.”
Lead plaintiff Genesis B., 18, of Long Beach, said the court’s decision to dismiss the case “before we could even present our evidence” was a “gut punch. We are living with the consequences of these policies every single day — wildfires, choking smoke, evacuation orders. And now, with the strongest storm of the year set to hit Southern California this week, our case is more urgent than ever.”