Western Environmental Law Center

Our Children’s Trust, Western Environmental Law Center, Gregory Law Group, and McGarvey Law are proud to announce that they have been awarded Public Justice’s 2025 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for their landmark victory in Held v. State of Montana—the first constitutional climate case brought by youth to go to trial in the United States.

In March 2020, 16 young Montanans courageously filed a lawsuit against their state, challenging laws and policies that promote fossil fuel development, accelerate the climate crisis, and inflict direct harm on their health and futures. These laws, they argued, violate their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, life, dignity, and freedom. The youth plaintiffs brought their claims to court to demand protection of their fundamental rights.

In a historic, groundbreaking 2024 decision, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s ruling that struck down state laws prohibiting consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in fossil fuel permitting and laws barring constitutional remedies. The court ruled such statutes are unconstitutional, affirming that Montana must consider climate and public health impacts in its permitting decisions, explicitly recognizing the harm to children, and recognizing a fundamental right to a stable climate system.

The court wrote: “Montana’s right to a clean and healthful environment and environmental life support system includes a stable climate system, which is clearly within the object and true principles of the Framers inclusion of the right to a clean and healthful environment.”

Barbara Chillcott, Senior Attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, said: “We are incredibly grateful to receive this recognition from Public Justice for our work to support these remarkable young plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana. Our gratitude goes first to the courageous young Montanans who stepped into the spotlight and persevered through the challenges of litigation to fight for their generation’s future. We also thank the dedicated Montana and global experts whose contributions were instrumental in building the strongest possible case. This victory is just the beginning—we’re now focused on ensuring Montana fulfills its constitutional obligations so that we can all share in a livable future.”

Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel and Executive Director of Our Children’s Trust, said: “We are deeply honored and humbled to receive this award, which belongs first and foremost to the sixteen brave youth plaintiffs in Held v. Montana. Their courage in taking the stand and speaking truth to power helped secure a ruling that protects the rights of young people to a safe and stable climate. Young people have always led civil rights and social justice movements, and we’re proud to stand alongside them as they use the courts to protect their fundamental rights against governments who wield their power to harm children. They don’t win money, but they win back their rights to health, a safe environment, and their basic human dignity. This September, some of those same youth will be back in federal court in Montana as plaintiffs in Lighthiser v. Trump, challenging executive orders that expand fossil fuel development, suppress climate science, and endanger their right to life. We are carrying forward the momentum from Held at a time when the stakes could not be higher—to make sure no president or government can sacrifice children’s lives for fossil fuel power.”

The legal team includes:

• Barbara Chillcott and Melissa Hornbein of Western Environmental Law Center
• Julia Olson, Nate Bellinger, and Mat dos Santos of Our Children’s Trust
• Phil Gregory of Gregory Law Group
• Roger Sullivan of McGarvey Law

Together, this team and its brave youth plaintiffs secured a precedent-setting victory that affirms climate accountability under constitutional law and strengthens the rights of young people to demand protection from government-caused climate harm.

Some of the same young people have been joined by others to continue this work in Lighthiser v. Trump, a federal constitutional case in Montana that challenges the executive actions undermining climate science and expanding fossil fuel production. As in Held, the plaintiffs are youth demanding their government protect—not endanger—their fundamental rights.

Contacts:   

Melissa Hornbein, Western Environmental Law Center, hornbein@westernlaw.org

Barbara Chillcott, Western Environmental Law Center, chillcott@westernlaw.org

Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel, Our Children’s Trust, 415.786.4825, julia@ourchildrenstrust.org

Helen Britto, Communications Associate Director, Our Children’s Trust 925.588.1171, helen@ourchildrenstrust.org 

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Today, as the climate and biodiversity crises rage across America, Reps. Westerman and Golden introduced the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. Under the guise of streamlining infrastructure permitting, the proposed law takes an axe to the nation’s bedrock environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Permit reform advocates have fallen prey to numerous myths that NEPA is impeding construction of roads, housing, and other infrastructure, yet data proves the law leads to better decisions and ultimately better projects. Instead of taking a reasoned approach to identifying and addressing specific permitting needs, this bill would open the door to plundering our nation’s resources on public lands and dramatically cut back the public’s ability to be heard during project development or to seek redress for violations of law in court. Last week, WELC led a coalition of 27 western conservation groups, authoring a letter to Rep. Huffman and the members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources advising all to exercise extreme caution on NEPA rollbacks such as this.

The sponsors’ press release bemoans NEPA’s “cumbersome and lengthy process,” which experts agree is rooted in chronic underfunding and under-staffing federal agencies—a problem created by Congress. The sponsors complain that NEPA “is currently the most litigated environmental statute,” but the fact is less than a quarter of a percent of NEPA decisions end up in court annually.

“The SPEED Act in this Congress is certain to virtually eliminate public participation and crucial environmental and health protections, opening the door to unchecked public lands exploitation without consideration of impacts to ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.” said Kyle Tisdel, Climate and Energy Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center. “The SPEED Act’s proposal to reduce the timeline for filing a legal claim from 72 months to five months would dramatically limit communities’ ability to seek recourse for harms to our air, water, and landscapes. This bill would provide near-blanket legal immunity to polluters for poisoning people and the environment.”

Congress has passed numerous updates to NEPA that are meaningfully reducing permitting times, such as FAST-41, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and others. Before creating a new fast-track process, we should see how all of these changes play out.

Significantly, by defining the law as purely procedural, the bill guts NEPA’s central purpose to ensure that all federal agencies consider the environmental impacts of their actions. For 50 years the law has directed agencies to consider environmental consequences of proposed actions, engaging the public and communities in that process to ensure that “to the fullest extent possible,” they “look before they leap” and make well-informed decisions that encourage harmony between human beings and the environment for present and future generations.

The bill also limits the types of projects subject to environmental review and eliminates an agency’s ability to consider the combined impacts of other projects, meaning environmental reviews will no longer fully inform the public. In addition, it takes away standard judicial remedies by eliminating courts’ ability to set aside agency actions that violate NEPA, meaning there would be no incentive for agencies to comply with the law. Moreover, projects would be able to proceed while any violations are corrected—tantamount to “bulldoze first, consider impacts later.”

We can improve the speed of permitting, and we already are. We must, because the climate and biodiversity crises demand swift and powerful responses. But we must not erode community and environmental protections to achieve this goal.

Contact:

Kyle Tisdel, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-770-7501, tisdel@westernlaw.org

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A coalition of 27 western conservation groups sent a letter to Rep. Huffman and the members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources advising all to exercise extreme caution on permitting reform in advance of a July 22 hearing titled “Permitting Purgatory: Restoring Common Sense to [National Environmental Policy Act] Reviews.”

“Given Congress’ composition, the signal our legislators sent with the 2025 Reconciliation Bill, and the Trump administration’s virtual lock on policy, permitting reform in this Congress is certain to virtually eliminate public participation and crucial environmental and health protections, opening the door to unchecked public lands exploitation without consideration of impacts to ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.” said Kyle Tisdel, Climate and Energy Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center. “A popular book advancing several myths about environmental protection and permitting has provided cover for those who want to push through widespread rollbacks of laws designed to protect communities and the environment. The history of deregulation in this country demonstrates that the public almost always loses to monied interests who take public resources. Ecological and community values are essential to a thriving, truly abundant world.”

Extreme antiregulatory political forces have attacked NEPA, our nation’s bedrock environmental law, from every conceivable angle for decades. When in power, conservatives have defunded and cut staff at agencies overseeing major project proposals for public lands and pointed to reduced efficiencies in reviews as evidence for deregulatory needs. NEPA experts testified as recently as 2023 that the largest impediment to “common-sense” environmental review is under-resourced agencies: “…the biggest source of delay is a lack of staff and unstable budgets. The most important thing to improve permit processing time is to bolster agency capacity. They must have sufficient staff and staff with relevant expertise,” said Prof. Jamie Pleune at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Antiregulatory voices also frequently cite NEPA litigation as cause for rolling back this crucial law, but less than a quarter of a percent of annual NEPA decisions end up in court. Likewise, deregulatory interests bemoan the law’s requirement for public participation in major decisions as onerous and disposable. In fact, the opposite is true. Public participation reduces litigation and improves outcomes, as noted in this study.

And Congress has passed numerous updates to NEPA that are meaningfully reducing permitting times, such as FAST-41, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and others in addition to White House Council on Environmental Quality rule updates in 2024.

If anything, it is far more likely that permitting reform now would allow toxic ideas that compromise future needs and opportunities to flourish at the coming generations’ expense. We can improve the speed of permitting, and we already are. We must, because the climate crisis demands a swift and powerful response. But we must not erode community and environmental protections for major projects—especially fossil fuel projects—to achieve this goal.

Contact:

Kyle Tisdel, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-770-7501, tisdel@westernlaw.org

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On the eve of Independence Day, Republicans have passed an enormously unpopular bill (2-1 against) designed to transfer wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest 20% who already own 85% of the nation’s wealth. The bill will ravage America’s social safety net, environment, and climate, nearly triple the national deficit and fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) equivalent to the 16th largest military budget worldwide if it were a country. It will make all who live in the “Land of the Free” poorer, sicker, less safe, and less free. Repairing the damage this callous betrayal of a bill will impose on American families and our federal government will take generations, and the suffering millions will go through can never be undone.

“For the people who need the safety nets that civilized cultures provide, for the debt-saddled future residents of this country, for the environment, and for human health—this bill will be devastating,” said Sarah McMillan, Wildlands and Wildlife Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center. “Combined with the dismantling and undercutting of laws and regulations that protect people and the environment, we are facing an existential challenge over the coming years and beyond. This is why we are fighting hard to protect what we can now, and remain ‘at work in the ruins’ with the utmost urgency to help draw the blueprint for building a better America.”

The bill takes an “all of the above” approach to knifing clean energy and fortifying fossil fuels by slashing renewable tax credits; cutting consumer credits for EVs and home energy upgrades; eliminating climate and air pollution grant programs; increasing already staggering subsidies for coal, oil, and gas; and bolstering fossil fuel production on public lands even though it is at a historic high globally already.

The bill will among many other things:

• Kick 17 million of the most vulnerable Americans off Medicaid, cut nursing home staff, and kill nearly 500,000 health care jobs,
• Cut food assistance program SNAP by 20%, for 40 million Americans,
• Repeal most clean energy tax credits created under Biden,
• Raise Americans’ electricity bills and kill hundreds of thousands of jobs in renewable energy,
• Massively cut taxes for oil and gas companies,
• Rescind the moratorium on building new coal power plants,
• Require offshore oil and gas lease sales and new drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
• Require quarterly oil and gas lease sales on public lands,
• Rescind Inflation Reduction Act funding for clean energy programs,
• Boost USFS logging targets by 75% over the next decade (Source)
• Rescind funds for certain forest and tree-planting programs,
• Spend $46.5 billion on border wall construction while unlawful crossings are at a record low, $45 billion on immigrant detention facilities, and $31 billion on ICE,
• And add $3.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.

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