Final Attempt to Block Trump Fossil Fuel EOs Outcome
Twenty-two young climate activists have suffered another legal defeat in their effort to challenge President Donald Trump’s fossil-fuel policies, with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refusing Monday to reconsider a decision that found the plaintiffs lacked standing.
The court declined to rehear Lighthiser v. Trump en banc, leaving in place an earlier three-judge panel decision. The plaintiffs had argued that three executive orders issued by Trump in 2025 would encourage greater fossil-fuel production, increase greenhouse-gas emissions and expose young Americans to worsening climate-related harms.
The ruling does not resolve the larger political argument over climate change or the merits of Trump's energy policies. Instead, the case ran into a problem that has repeatedly confronted ambitious climate litigation: establishing that federal courts have the authority to provide the requested remedy.
The 22 plaintiffs, who live in Montana, Oregon, Hawaii, California and Florida, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Montana in May 2025. They challenged Trump's “Unleashing American Energy,” “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” and “Reinvigorating America's Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” executive orders.
Together, the orders were intended to increase domestic energy development and reduce regulatory and permitting barriers.
The plaintiffs argued that those policies would increase fossil-fuel use and consequently worsen the climate conditions they expect to experience during their lifetimes.
A Montana federal court dismissed the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction in October 2025. The court did so even after finding what it described as “overwhelming evidence” that climate change would harm the plaintiffs in the future and referring to the situation as a “children's health emergency.”
That distinction became central to the litigation. A court can accept evidence that plaintiffs face harm without concluding that those plaintiffs have satisfied the constitutional requirements necessary to obtain the particular judicial relief they seek.
The young activists appealed.
In June, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel affirmed the dismissal, concluding that the plaintiffs lacked standing. They then requested an en banc rehearing, which would have allowed a larger group of Ninth Circuit judges to reconsider the panel's decision.
Monday's refusal leaves that decision intact.
Our Children's Trust, the Oregon nonprofit representing the plaintiffs, sharply criticized the earlier ruling.
“The panel’s decision is the first in American history to deny courts the power to review an unconstitutional executive order,” Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and co-executive director of Our Children's Trust, said while seeking rehearing. “That is not a small mistake. That is constitutional corruption.”
“No president should be able to direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda that endangers children’s lives and face zero judicial review,” Olson continued.
The Ninth Circuit ultimately declined the organization's request for another hearing.
Our Children's Trust has spent years pursuing constitutional climate litigation on behalf of young plaintiffs. The organization was also behind Juliana v. United States, another closely watched lawsuit seeking judicial intervention in federal climate policy.
That case encountered a similar obstacle.
In Juliana, a Ninth Circuit panel concluded in 2020 that the plaintiffs had presented a compelling case concerning the dangers of climate change but nevertheless lacked standing because the sweeping remedy they sought was beyond the judiciary's constitutional authority to provide.
The majority wrote that questions surrounding national climate policy had to be presented to the political branches rather than resolved through the courts.
The Lighthiser plaintiffs attempted to challenge specific executive actions rather than simply federal climate policy in the abstract. But the latest litigation still failed to overcome the standing problem.
The result comes during a difficult period for several other high-profile climate lawsuits.
In March, Maryland's highest court dismissed cases brought by Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County against major fossil-fuel companies. Those local governments had sought damages based on alleged climate-related harms.
In Pennsylvania, a judge dismissed Bucks County's lawsuit against major oil companies in May 2025, concluding that Pennsylvania courts lacked jurisdiction over claims involving interstate air pollution.
Those cases involve different plaintiffs, defendants and legal theories, so their dismissals do not establish a single nationwide rule against climate litigation. They do demonstrate the procedural and jurisdictional barriers confronting plaintiffs attempting to use state and federal courts to impose liability or force changes in national energy policy.
For the young plaintiffs in Lighthiser, that barrier has now held at multiple stages.
They received a hearing in federal court. They appealed their dismissal to a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel. After losing there, they asked the broader appeals court to revisit the decision.
The Ninth Circuit said no.