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our children's trust
'Fighting for Our Lives': Youth Sue to Block Utah Fossil Fuel Permits
"Some days I can't even go outside because the air is so polluted," said one plaintiff. "I get headaches, feel dizzy when it’s too hot, and sometimes I can't even see down my own street because of smoke from wildfires."
Dec 01, 2025
Following the Utah Supreme Court's dismissal of a youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit earlier this year, 10 young Utahns on Monday launched a new case intended to block state permits for coal, gas, and oil development.
Backed by Our Children's Trust—a legal group behind various youth climate suits, including Juliana v. United States and Held v. State of Montana—the plaintiffs are suing the Utah Board of Oil, Gas, and Mining; the Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining; and the director of the latter, Mick Thomas, in state court.
"Plaintiffs bring this action to protect their fundamental rights to life, health, and safety that defendants are violating by permitting fossil fuel development, when doing so is harmful, unnecessary, and more expensive than clean, renewable forms of energy," says the complaint.
"Due to localized air and climate pollution caused by defendants' permitting activities, plaintiffs live in some of the worst air quality of any state in the nation and face climate disruptions, including elevated temperatures and deadly heatwaves, frequent and severe wildfires and smoke, exceptional drought, exacerbated medical conditions, and increased health risks," the filing continues.
"Defendants' fossil fuel permitting challenged here is unconstitutional because it harms the health and safety of plaintiffs, interferes with their healthy development, and takes years off of their lives," the document adds.
When the Utah Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the earlier lawsuit in March, Our Children's Trust called it a "partial win" because, as lead attorney Andrew Welle explained at the time, "the decision opens a clear path forward for continuing our challenge to the state's actions in promoting fossil fuel development."
🚨Ten Utah youth filed a constitutional climate lawsuit against their state for issuing fossil fuel permits that endanger their health, lives, and safety. Learn more: bit.ly/49LVqA0
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— Our Children’s Trust (@youthvgov.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 4:07 PM
The lead plaintiff for both cases is Natalie Roberts, an 18-year-old who lives in Salt Lake City. In April, the American Lung Association's annual State of the Air report gave the state capital's metro area an "F" grade for both ground-level ozone (smog) and particle (soot) pollution.
"Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, preterm births, and impaired cognitive functioning later in life. Particle pollution can also cause lung cancer," said Nick Torres, advocacy director for the American Lung Association, in a statement when the report was released.
"Unfortunately, too many people in the Salt Lake City metro area are living with unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution," Torres continued. "This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies. We urge Utah policymakers to take action to improve our air quality, and we are calling on everyone to support the incredibly important work of the US Environmental Protection Agency."
Roberts, in a Monday statement, shared her experiences with her city's polluted air and increasingly hot temperatures.
"Some days I can't even go outside because the air is so polluted," the teenager said. "I get headaches, feel dizzy when it's too hot, and sometimes I can't even see down my own street because of smoke from wildfires. I worry every day about my health, my future, and what kind of world I'll live in if the state keeps approving these fossil fuel permits. We're fighting for our lives and asking the court to protect us before it's too late."
The complaint details similar experiences by other plaintiffs. When 21-year-old Park City resident Sedona Murdock "is exposed to dangerous air quality, she experiences pain in her chest and lungs, difficulty breathing, and coughing, and it can trigger life-threatening asthma attacks," it says. "Sedona experiences stress and anxiety because of the harms to her health that she has already suffered."
Otis W. and Lev W., brothers from Salt Lake City who are respectively 16 and 13, "experience painful headaches from bad air quality and have often had days where their schools have not allowed them or their peers to go outside," according to the filing. "Increasingly intense rain events have resulted in flooding and water intrusion in Otis and Lev's home, threatening their shelter and presenting a risk of dangerous mold growth."
"Decreased snowfall, snowpack, precipitation, and warming temperatures are diminishing water sources that provide water for Otis and Lev's family and community, threatening their water security," the complaint says. "Several trees in Otis and Lev's yard that provided shade for their home have already died from increased heat and drought conditions, making their home hotter and increasing the dangers to them of rising temperatures and heatwaves."
The document also points out how the pair and other youth plaintiffs have had to alter or abandon beloved outdoor activities, from team sports such as soccer to camping, hiking, mountain biking, rafting, running, and skiing, because of the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
"The state cannot continue issuing fossil fuel permits that put children's lives and health in jeopardy," said Welle, the lead attorney. "This case is about holding Utah accountable to its constitutional obligations to protect youth from serious harm caused by air pollution, climate impacts, and unsafe fossil fuel development. The court now has what it says it needs to hear and decide this case and prevent further harm to these young people and ensure the state governs responsibly."
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'We Will Appeal': Judge Dismisses Youth Suit Against Trump Attacks on Climate
"Courts cannot offer more protection to fossil fuel companies seeking to preserve their profits than to young Americans seeking to preserve their rights," said the plaintiffs' lead attorney.
Oct 16, 2025
American children and young adults suing over President Donald Trump's anti-climate executive orders plan to keep fighting after a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed their case, citing a previous decision from the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Eva Lighthiser, Rikki Held—of the historic Held v. State of Montana case—and 20 other young people filed a federal suit in Montana in May, taking aim at Trump's executive orders (EOs) declaring a "national energy emergency," directing federal agencies to "unleash" American energy by accelerating fossil fuel development, and boosting the coal industry.
"The founders of this country believed our rights to life and liberty were the fundamental tenets of a reasoned and just society, among the most sacred of rights to protect from government intrusion and overreach," said Daniel C. Snyder, director of the Environmental Enforcement Project at Public Justice, one of the groups representing the young plaintiffs.
"Not only should Americans be outraged by unlawful executive actions that trample upon those rights, but also because the harm these executive orders have inflicted was acknowledged by the court—showing the serious nature of plaintiffs' case," Snyder continued. "Allowing the burning of fossil fuels to continue will eventually render our nation unlivable for future generations."
"Allowing the burning of fossil fuels to continue will eventually render our nation unlivable for future generations."
US District Judge Dana Christensen "reluctantly" dismissed Lighthiser v. Trump on Wednesday, pointing to the 9th Circuit's 2020 opinion in Juliana v. United States, a constitutional climate case that the US Supreme Court effectively ended in March.
"Plaintiffs have presented overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing at a staggering pace, and that this change stems from the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused by the production and burning of fossil fuels," wrote Christensen. "The record further demonstrates that climate change and the exposure from fossil fuels presents a children's health emergency."
The appointee of former President Barack Obama also said that he was "troubled by the very real harms presented by climate change and the challenged EOs' effect on carbon dioxide emissions." Specifically, he noted, "plaintiffs have shown the challenged EOs will generate an additional 205 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2027, an increase which plaintiffs convincingly allege will expose them to imminent, increased harm from a warming climate."
While Adam Gustafson, acting assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the US Department of Justice, cheered the dismissal of what he called "a sweeping and baseless attack on President Trump's energy agenda," the judge wrote that "if the 9th Circuit disagrees" with his decision, he "welcomes the return of this case to decide it on the merits."
Lawyers for the youth plaintiffs have already set their sights on the higher court. Lead attorney Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust stressed that "Judge Christensen said he reached his decision reluctantly and invited the 9th Circuit to correct him so these young Americans can have their case heard—and the 9th Circuit should do just that."
"Every day these executive orders remain in effect, these 22 young Americans suffer irreparable harm to their health, safety, and future," she noted. "The judge recognized that the government's fossil fuel directives are injuring these youth, but said his hands were tied by precedent."
"We will appeal—because courts cannot offer more protection to fossil fuel companies seeking to preserve their profits than to young Americans seeking to preserve their rights," Olson added. "This violates not only the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, but the most basic principles of justice."
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Youth Sue Over Trump Executive Orders That 'Escalate' Climate Crisis
"He's waging war on us with fossil fuels as his weapon, and we're fighting back with the Constitution," said one of the 22 plaintiffs.
May 29, 2025
Nearly two dozen American children and young adults sued U.S. President Donald Trump, leaders in his administration, and various agencies in federal court on Thursday over a trio of executive orders they argue "escalate" the climate emergency that imperils their futures.
Lighthiser v. Trump, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, challenges executive orders (EOs) 14156, 14154, and 14261—which, respectively, declared a "national energy emergency," directed agencies to "unleash" American energy by accelerating fossil fuel development, and called for boosting the country's coal industry.
"Trump's fossil fuel orders are a death sentence for my generation," said named plaintiff Eva Lighthiser in a statement. "I'm not suing because I want to—I'm suing because I have to. My health, my future, and my right to speak the truth are all on the line. He's waging war on us with fossil fuels as his weapon, and we're fighting back with the Constitution."
Specifically, the complaint argues that "the EOs violate the Fifth Amendment substantive due process clause on their face by depriving plaintiffs of their fundamental rights to life and liberty." The filing also states that the orders are ultra vires—meaning they go beyond Trump's presidential authority "in assuming powers reserved to and exercised by Congress through Article I" of the U.S. Constitution.
"From day one of the current administration, President Trump has issued directives to increase fossil fuel use and production, and block an energy transition to wind, solar, battery storage, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles," the complaint reads. "President Trump's EOs falsely claim an energy emergency, while the true emergency is that fossil fuel pollution is destroying the foundation of plaintiffs' lives."
"These unconstitutional directives have the immediate effect of (a) slowing the buildout of U.S. energy infrastructure that eliminates planet-heating fossil fuel greenhouse gas pollution... and (b) increasing the use of fossil fuels that pollute the air, water, lands, and climate on which plaintiffs' lives depend," the filing stresses.
🚨 Youth from Montana and four other states are suing the Trump administration for violating their constitutional rights with executive orders that fast-track fossil fuel projects, worsen the climate crisis, and suppress climate science. PR: bit.ly/youthsuetrump-pr #YouthvGov
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— Our Children’s Trust (@youthvgov.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 10:11 AM
The youth are asking the district court to declare Trump's EOs and related executive actions "unlawful, unconstitutional, ultra vires, and invalid," and to issue a permanent injunction blocking the long list of defendants from implementing or enforcing them.
Lighthiser is a 19-year-old from Livingston, Montana. She and 24-year-old Rikki Held are among 10 of 22 plaintiffs in this case who were also part of Held v. State of Montana, in which a judge in 2023 agreed with young residents who argued that Montana violated their state constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuel extraction. The Montana Supreme Court upheld that decision last December.
Both groups of young plaintiffs are represented by Our Children's Trust, known for several youth climate lawsuits, including Juliana v. United States, the landmark constitutional case that the U.S. Supreme Court ended in March.
Lead attorney Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust said Thursday that "these executive orders are an overt abuse of power. The president is knowingly putting young people's lives in danger to serve fossil fuel interests, while silencing scientists and defying laws passed by Congress."
"These young plaintiffs refuse to be collateral damage in a fossil fuel war on their future," Olson continued. "They are demanding accountability where it still matters—in a court of law. The executive branch is not above the Constitution, and these young people are here to prove it."
For Lighthiser v. Trump, Our Children's Trust has partnered with Gregory Law Group, McGarvey Law, and Public Justice.
"The government's actions irreparably harm our nation's most important asset: our children," said Dan Snyder, director of the Environmental Enforcement Project for Public Justice. "The science is irrefutable that humans and their pollution are causing climate change, and that a changing climate will result in a growing list of injuries that are uniquely felt by America's youngest population."
"Our children enjoy the same constitutional rights to life and liberty as adults, yet have been tasked with shouldering the impact of a destabilized climate system without ever having a say in the matter," he added. "President Trump's executive orders are unlawful and intolerable, and these youth plaintiffs shall put an end to it."
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