In March, the ATS joined an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in the court case Held v Montana – a lawsuit being heard in the Montana State Court system in which several Montana youths are suing the State of Montana for failing to respond to climate change.  The youth contend that failure to respond to climate change will infringe on their state constitutional rights. The Montana constitution includes a provision, saying the state has a constitutional obligation to provide “adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation.”  The Montana state legislature recently passed a law barring the state from considering climate impacts when evaluating permits requests for building and natural resource extraction projects.

A lower Montana state court has heard the case and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs deciding that the state has a state constitutional obligation to consider climate impacts when reviewing project proposals that may impact the environment.  The amicus briefs the ATS joined urges the Montana State Supreme Court to support the lower court decision.