A favorite trail in Missoula in the North Hills. People are moving to Montana for access to the outdoors, according to an MSU Extension study. (Keila Szpaller/The Daily Montanan)
In the darkest days of the year, the Montana Supreme Court shines brightly with an enlightened ruling upholding the Montana Constitution’s “inalienable right to a clean and healthful environment” in Montana for “present and future generations.”
In the landmark and far-reaching decision authored by retiring Chief Justice Mike McGrath, the court overwhelmingly validated the earlier ruling by Lewis and Clark District Court Judge Kathy Seeley. Significantly, it validates the concerns of the group of young people who brought the lawsuit in their attempt to preserve a livable future climate in the face of the rapidly and increasingly damaging changes afflicting the state, nation, and planet.
The Held vs. Montana case made national and worldwide news when Judge Seeley’s extensive ruling was issued.
Why?
Because it was the first victory in the nation on a case challenging a state’s disregard for a constitutional mandate to provide its citizens with a clean and healthful environment. And no, you don’t have that when the state winks and nods at polluters and the legislature does everything it can to try and change the laws to allow more pollution, less citizen review and absolutely ignores the consequences of that pollution on our climate.
The court’s 70-page ruling lays out many, many reasons why the State of Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte, Attorney General Austin Knudsen, the Montana Departments of Environmental Quality, Natural Resources and Conservation, and Transportation have failed to uphold the constitutional mandate.
As reported, the court upheld the lower court decision to invalidate the laws passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature in an attempt to circumvent the Constitution to exempt the very greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis from consideration by permitting agencies.
The reaction by the governor is predictably biased in favor of the energy companies that are running some of the largest and dirtiest generation plants in the nation. And as usual, the threats are that the ruling means endless litigation that will cause higher energy costs for Montanans — which is supremely ironic given that under inept Republican leadership we’ve already gone from the cheapest power in the region to the most expensive.
The reaction from the legislative leaders is similarly short-sighted, similarly biased toward corporate profits over public and environmental health, and totally in line with the Legislature’s failing efforts to ignore the Constitution — not just on the environment, but on a host of other constitutional issues including individual dignity, equal protection, discrimination and privacy.
Both the executive and legislative branches are also attempting to paint the court’s ruling as somehow legislating from the bench. But nothing could be further from the truth given the very, very plain language of the Montana Constitution, which has been widely lauded and copied by states and nations worldwide.
What the power-hungry governor and legislative leaders are actually trying to do is ignore the inescapable fact that our system of government is based on three separate but equal branches. In this case, the judiciary has upheld it’s job to keep both executive and legislative actions in line with the Constitution, no matter how much they want to run free to pass and implement unconstitutional laws and policies.
In a state with the nation’s largest Superfund site due to corporate polluters, the delegates of the 1972 Constitutional Convention knew well what they wanted to put in the Montana Constitution and why.
The delegates’ foresight and the court’s landmark decision means all Montanans — including those yet to be born — will benefit from our inalienable right to a clean and healthful environment.