Judge Dismisses Case Challenging Alaska LNG Project In Latest Setback For Youth Climate Cases
An Alaskan state court judge has dismissed a youth climate case seeking to halt the state’s development of a massive new liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, deciding that the youths’ constitutional challenge to a state law authorizing the project is beyond judicial review.
In a March 10 order granting dismissal of the case Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, Alaska Superior Court Judge Dani R. Crosby ruled that the political question doctrine barred youth plaintiffs’ claims. Eight young Alaskans filed the lawsuit in May 2024 against the Alaskan government and the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation and its chief executive. The case claims that a state statute requiring the state-based corporation to develop the Alaska LNG project violates youths’ public trust and due process rights under Alaska’s constitution, since the project would unleash significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate the climate crisis.
“Important questions regarding climate change mitigation do not present justiciable questions because the Court lacks both the authority and the tools to reweigh the competing economic, environmental, social or conservation goals served by the legislature’s policy choice to enact the challenged statute or advance the Alaska LNG Project,” Crosby wrote in her opinion. She said that courts cannot second guess the decisions made by the legislature and that engagement with the political branches is the proper way to effectuate change.
Crosby’s ruling aligns with the arguments the state made during a hearing last October. “The court doesn’t get to reweigh policy decisions,” an attorney for the state asserted in that hearing.
But Andrew Welle, a senior staff attorney at Our Children’s Trust and the lead counsel for the Alaskan youth plaintiffs, said Crosby’s opinion contained “egregious legal errors.”
“She got things completely upside down when it comes to separation of powers,” he said. It is precisely the duty of courts to review challenged policies and actions of the political branches to ensure that they are constitutionally compliant.
Welle said this ruling has implications not just for this case contesting the Alaska LNG project, but for all challenges to natural resource policy decisions by the state.
“[Crosby] basically said that natural resource policy decisions are beyond the authority of courts because they involve competing interests, and therefore courts can’t decide them. So that means not only is this case nonjusticiable, but every single case involving natural resource issues is beyond the authority of courts to decide. And that’s completely contradictory to 50 years of precedent interpreting Article VIII of Alaska’s constitution,” Welle told Climate in the Courts.
The youth plaintiffs had claimed the state was in violation of Article VIII of the constitution, which outlines state law pertaining to natural resources and says that resources and lands must be managed in a sustainable manner as they are part of the public trust domain. Climate change is already degrading Alaska’s natural resources and environment, and policies exacerbating climate change therefore run afoul of this constitutional provision, the youths’ case contended. The Alaska LNG project is expected to result in at least 2.3 billion metric tons of additional climate pollution over 30 years, which would roughly triple the state’s greenhouse gas emissions for decades.
Two previous youth constitutional climate cases in Alaska have also been unsuccessful. One of those cases –Sagoonick v. State of Alaska I – featured several of the same plaintiffs as the current case. But both previous cases were more broadly framed as challenges to Alaska’s overall climate and energy policies. The current case, by contrast, challenges a discrete project and state law.
“This case is fundamentally different from those previous cases,” Welle said. “And it’s directly responsive to the guidance and concerns that the Alaska Supreme Court delineated in our last case, saying bring us a challenge to a particular project. That’s exactly what we’ve done.”
Crosby’s opinion, he said, failed to distinguish between these cases. “She doesn’t grapple with the actual facts or legal claims in the [current] case at all.”
Welle said the youth plaintiffs will appeal her ruling to the Alaska Supreme Court.
“The legal arguments in this case are I think so clearly on our side that it sets us up for a very favorable appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court, and we’re confident that they’re going to set things right,” he told Climate in the Courts.
Recent Dismissals
The Alaskan case dismissal is the latest in a recent string of setbacks for Our Children’s Trust, which brings constitutional climate cases against governments on behalf of young people. Last month courts tossed out two of these cases. In Virginia, the state supreme court upheld dismissal of a youth lawsuit challenging the state’s longstanding approvals of fossil fuel projects. And a federal court in California dismissed an equal protection climate case brought by 18 young Californians against the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Another case at the federal level, Juliana v. United States, is currently pending at the US Supreme Court on a last-ditch cert petition from youth plaintiffs attempting to revive the case after a federal appeals court nixed it last year. In Utah, the state supreme court is expected to hand down a decision very soon in youth plaintiffs’ appeal of dismissal of their case, which challenges the pro-fossil fuel policies of the state government.
“There’s going to be road bumps along the way as courts are I think struggling to recognize and do their duty to hear these cases. But the trend is increasingly towards justice, and we’re seeing that with the cases in Montana and Hawaii,” Welle said. Our Children’s Trust won breakthrough victories in the last two years in those states.
The Oregon-based nonprofit law firm has several more state cases in the works, and is exploring options for a new federal case against the Trump administration.
“We’re going to continue to pursue justice for young people in state courts,” Welle said. “But there’s also a place for the federal courts. With what the Trump administration is doing, we’re going to have to bring that fight to the federal courts as well in this administration.”
