Youth Take Alaska To Court In Constitutional Challenge To Fossil Gas Mega-Project
Latest youth climate lawsuit targets the Alaska LNG Project, which is expected to generate billions of tons of climate pollution.
Eight young Alaskans have sued the state of Alaska and a state-created corporation in an attempt to prevent a massive new fossil gas project from proceeding. The lawsuit, Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, targets the Alaska LNG Project and challenges a state law mandating the project be developed and advanced. This law, the case alleges, violates youth plaintiffs’ due process and public trust rights under the state constitution, as the project’s expected climate pollution would further deteriorate Alaska’s environment and significantly and disproportionately harm the state’s youngest citizens.
“Alaska’s youth are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and their futures depend on a swift transition away from fossil fuels,” Andrew Welle, senior staff attorney for the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement. “The Alaska LNG Project is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a five-alarm fire at their homes.”
The case was filed May 22 in the state’s Superior Court for the Third Judicial District in Anchorage. Defendants include the state of Alaska, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC), and the company’s president Frank Richards. AGDC, established under Alaskan law in 2010, is a public corporation of the state whose purpose is to facilitate development of fossil gas from Alaska’s North Slope. In 2014 the state legislature passed a law expanding AGDC’s mandate to include development of a liquefied ‘natural’ gas (LNG) project on behalf of the state.
These statutory provisions that require the development of a major new LNG project and associated infrastructure are at odds with the scientifically-informed imperative that society must transition swiftly away from all fossil fuels in order to mitigate the worsening climate crisis, the new lawsuit asserts.
“At a time when the scientific consensus requires that climate pollution must be rapidly reduced to avert further and irreversible climate harms to Alaska’s youth, [the statutory provisions] unconstitutionally direct AGDC to develop and advance the Alaska LNG Project,” the complaint contends, “which would unleash vast quantities of fossil gas from Alaska’s North Slope and substantially increase Alaska’s emissions of climate pollution.”
The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that the statute mandating the Alaska LNG project is unconstitutional. Specifically, plaintiffs allege violations of their due process and public trust rights and the right to a climate system that sustains human life, liberty, and dignity. Under Alaska’s constitutional public trust provisions (in Article VIII), natural resources and the environment broadly are part of the public commons or trust, and the state is obligated as trustee to preserve them for present and future generations. The complaint argues that a life-sustaining climate system is a “critical component” of plaintiffs’ public trust rights, and is fundamental to other basic constitutional rights such as due process and life, liberty, and property.
“[Defendants] are seeking to drastically expand Alaska’s annual emissions of fossil fuel climate pollution, but Alaska’s constitution doesn’t allow the state to do that, because it provides really strong protections for young people’s access to the natural resources that their lives depend on,” Welle said.
Project could triple Alaska’s GHG emissions for decades
Alaska is one of the largest oil and gas producing states in the US, ranking fifth in crude oil production and twelfth in fossil gas production. The Alaska LNG project would significantly increase gas production from the North Slope, which contains 35 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves and potentially an additional 200 trillion cubic feet of reserves, according to AGDC. Advancements in drilling technology could open up hundreds of trillions of cubic feet more fossil gas resources for extraction from the area.
The Alaska LNG project consists of a gas treatment plant to treat raw extracted gas, a main gas pipeline to transport the gas more than 800 miles across the state, and an LNG plant and marine terminal to liquefy the gas for export, with much of it intended to be shipped to Asia. The project is expected to transport more than 3.5 billion cubic feet of fossil gas per day for combustion. It is fully permitted and ready for construction and operation; if allowed to go forward, it is expected to operate for at least 30 years, unleashing substantial levels of climate pollution – at least 2.3 billion metric tons. That would roughly triple Alaska’s greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, the lawsuit argues.
“On the frontlines of the frontlines”
Alaska is already experiencing severe climate impacts. The state is warming at least twice as fast as the global average since the mid-20th century, and the Arctic region is heating at a rate of nearly four times the global average since 1979. From rapidly declining snowpack and glacier loss to melting permafrost (leading to mineral contamination of rivers, among other impacts) and profound transformations of sensitive ecosystems, the climate crisis driven primarily by fossil fuel combustion is causing a myriad of adverse impacts that threaten the health, wellbeing, cultural traditions and identities of the youth plaintiffs, the case argues. These young Alaskans, between the ages of 8 and 22, all have a deep connection to the land and natural environment that is increasingly imperiled by rising levels of climate pollution.
“I joined this case because melting permafrost and erosion are harming my Yup’ik culture by sinking our land and hurting the subsistence we gather,” plaintiff Jamie T. said in a statement.
“Many of the youth we represent in the case are from Alaska Native communities who depend directly on the natural resources surrounding their communities, the fish and the wildlife, to sustain their lives and their cultures. So they’re really on the frontlines of the frontlines of the climate crisis,” Welle said.
Building on previous Alaska youth climate case
In addition to declaratory relief, the youth plaintiffs are asking for a court order prohibiting the state from moving forward with the Alaska LNG project.
A spokesperson for AGDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In August last year several environmental groups launched a court challenge to the US Department of Energy’s approvals of the project’s gas exports, arguing the federal government’s authorizations did not adequately and fully assess the climate and environmental impacts of this massive fossil fuel extraction and export project. “The Biden administration made a mockery of the climate emergency when it approved the Alaska LNG carbon bomb and this lawsuit aims to stop it from being built,” Jason Rylander, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said on the filing of that case by CBD and the Sierra Club with support from Earthjustice.
The new youth-led lawsuit challenging the project is the latest youth constitutional climate case to be brought against governments in the US, and it follows a previous youth constitutional climate challenge to the Alaskan government that did not ultimately succeed. That case (Sagoonick v. State of Alaska I) featured several of the same plaintiffs and had a broader scope, contending that state policies and practices promoting fossil fuels were unconstitutional. The Alaska Supreme Court ended the case in 2022 with a 3-2 decision affirming the case should be dismissed.
Welle said the new legal challenge builds upon the learned experience from that previous case. “I would characterize this case as following the guidance that was provided by the previous decision from the Alaska Supreme Court. The court specifically said that Alaska’s constitution does not leave youth without recourse and that they can challenge specific projects.”
“In the midst of the climate emergency in Alaska, the state is pursuing a project that moves the state exactly in the opposite direction of what it needs to be doing to protect the lives and the health and the safety of these youth,” he added. “The situation is just getting worse for these young people in Alaska. With a case like this aimed at stopping a massive expansion of Alaska’s fossil fuel emissions, it’s is going to make a big difference for them.”
