Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Climate Challenge Suit Against Trump

A federal appeals court upheld on June 2 the dismissal of a lawsuit brought on behalf of 22 children challenging President Donald Trump’s executive orders promoting fossil fuel development.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that the plaintiffs in Lighthiser v. Donald J. Trump lacked standing to pursue the claims.

“The appellate court unanimously affirmed what the district court said months ago—the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring this suit because they did not establish that the Executive Orders caused any injury or that any injury could be redressed by the courts,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD).

“Working with our partner agencies, ENRD is on the front lines of advancing the President’s energy directives, using America’s abundant natural resources to our benefit including by having clean and healthy air and water.”

The case was filed by Our Children’s Trust, in partnership with Gregory Law Group, McGarvey Law, and Public Justice on behalf of 22 young people from Montana, Oregon, Hawaii, California, and Florida. It claimed that Trump’s “anti-clean energy and anti-climate science Executive Orders” would increase air pollution and climate change and lead to a loss of life.

“This decision lets the President direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda, with no authorization from Congress and no meaningful judicial review, and then tells the children harmed by that agenda that they cannot challenge it until it is unconstitutionally implemented piece by piece. That is not how the Constitution works,” said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and co-executive director of Our Children’s Trust, in a statement.

“The court did not decide whether these Executive Orders are constitutional. It did not decide whether the federal government may knowingly endanger children. Instead, it slammed the courthouse doors on children fighting for their lives and told them to file hundreds of cases against every agency action carrying out the President’s unconstitutional Executive Orders. Courts do not become policymakers when they stop unconstitutional government action. That is their job. These young people deserve a court willing to do it.”

One of the executive orders at the heart of the lawsuit was Trump’s order itled “Unleashing American Energy.” Trump said in that order that it was in “the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.”

U.S. domestic crude oil production has increased from 9.1 million barrels per day on average as of March 2016 to 13.7 million barrels per day as of March 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.