Trump Executive Orders on Energy Survive Youth Climate Challenge

A recent Montana decision dismissing efforts by a group of young plaintiffs to challenge some of those orders illustrates how court procedural rules are likely to derail large-scale efforts to stifle executive branch policies through litigation.

The Montana federal court decision in Lighthiser v. Trump is available here. Even though the court explicitly stated that climate change and other impacts from fossil fuels created a “children’s health emergency,” the court, relying on the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Juliana v. United States, found that the requested relief was beyond its power to give and dismissed the youths’ suit with prejudice.

Lighthiser turns on standing, redressability, and the separation of powers. To future plaintiffs, the message is clear. Anchor federal challenges in discrete, final agency actions and statutory text, and do not ask a district court to either step into the shoes of regulators or review and opine on the legality of an entire policy regime.

Case Background

In May, 22 plaintiffs ranging in age from 7 to 25 challenged three EOs signed during Trump’s first months back in office: EO 14154, Unleashing American Energy, EO 14156, Declaring a National Energy Emergency, and EO 14261, Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry. (We previously discussed these orders here, here, and here.) The plaintiffs argued that there was no “national energy emergency” and instead alleged that fossil-fuel production was “destroying the foundation” of their lives in violation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. They then sought a preliminary injunction barring the Trump Administration from implementing the challenged policies. The plaintiffs’ allegations mirrored allegations in the Montana Supreme Court decision in Held v. Montana (discussed here), which relied on Montana state law.

The plaintiffs’ case in Lighthiser is factually and intellectually close to an earlier case, Juliana v. United States, in which a group of children claimed the government had violated their “right to a stable climate system that can sustain human life.” In 2020, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the Juliana youth plaintiffs’ constitutional climate claims for lack of redressability and lack of judicial power. It held that federal courts cannot order the executive branch to craft and execute a nationwide emissions drawdown plan. It emphasized that separation of powers and the absence of manageable standards bar such relief. Declaratory relief alone would not fix the injuries.

Subsequent proceedings reaffirmed those constraints. (See here.) After remand efforts and amended pleadings, the Ninth Circuit again rejected the children’s attempts to revive broad, policy‑scale remedies. The panel reiterated two points. First, plaintiffs must show relief that is substantially likely to ameliorate harm. Second, the relief must be within the courts’ Article III power to award. Program‑wide supervision and open‑ended remedial plans fail both prongs.

Shortly after the Lighthiser case was filed, the Trump Administration sought dismissal, arguing that the plaintiffs lack constitutional standing, and the alleged injuries were not redressable. After a two-day hearing, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice.

The Lighthiser Decision

In its decision dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims, the court cited to Juliana and found that the requested injunction would demand unmanageable, ongoing supervision of myriad agency actions and thus exceeded the courts’ Article III authority.

The Lighthiser plaintiffs tried to squeeze their claims into the narrow window left open by the Ninth Circuit in Juliana, which allowed for the possibility of discrete challenges to specific agency actions. But while Juliana did not foreclose such claims, it cautioned lower courts against injunctions that require courts to police ongoing executive policymaking across many agencies and underscored that injunctions must specify the acts restrained in reasonable detail.

These limits drove the Lighthiser decision. While the court accepted that the plaintiffs demonstrated both injury and causation, it nevertheless concluded that the requested relief exceeds judicial power because it would require indefinite monitoring of the executive branch. The opinion underscores that courts cannot “wind back the clock” on an Administration’s energy policy or police compliance across scores of agencies without clear and manageable standards.

The plaintiffs unsuccessfully relied on two recent US Supreme Court decisions. Gutierrez v. Saenz, which held that removing even one legal barrier to real-world relief can establish redressability, and Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA, which held that courts can use “commonsense economic inferences” to evaluate whether requested relief would ameliorate the alleged harm (for more, see here). While the court acknowledged that the plaintiffs may have shown redressability, it held that this was “of no consequence,” as the plaintiffs could not satisfy Juliana’s separation-of-powers constraint. Even if the requested injunction would in fact reduce emissions, the court cannot assert authority it does not have.

The court also flagged a Rule 65(d) problem. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(d) requires that an enforceable injunction must specify the acts restrained in reasonable detail. Here, the plaintiffs asked to enjoin “implementation” of the Challenged Eos, but the record showed many related agency actions with mixed or no textual reliance on those orders. Accordingly, what the term “implementation” means in context is amorphous, and policing whether each agency action “implements” an EO would require constant, policy-level supervision. That is not a traditional equitable function of federal courts.

Strategic Implications and Ongoing Uncertainty

What to make of the decision? For plaintiffs, future challenges must prioritize “pin-point” Administrative Procedure Act challenges to final agency actions, supported by robust administrative records, and tie alleged harms to discrete decisions to establish traceability and avoid Juliana-style redressability pitfalls. Plaintiffs should seek targeted remedies — vacatur, set-aside, or remand with directions — rather than ongoing court supervision of policy.

Future defendants (whether state or federal) will likely take from this decision the need to press standing and redressability at every stage and to argue that any requested injunction fails Rule 65(d) unless it specifies concrete acts and decision points. Where plaintiffs fail to specify a specific action to be challenged, defendants will argue that the relief is overbroad.

How these tensions will play out depends on how the Ninth Circuit reconciles Juliana with standing decisions like Diamond Alternative Energy. Here, the district court reads Juliana as controlling on Article III power even where factual amelioration is likely. At least theoretically, a future panel might place more weight on practical, incremental redress — at least for narrower injunctions tethered to specific decisions.

Second, future courts will need to decide what counts as sufficiently “specific” under Rule 65(d) in the EO context. District courts diverge on their own ability to manage executive directives that cascade through multiple programs. While some have been willing to hear challenges (see examples here), other courts have been more restrictive. Going forward, cases like Lighthiser will continue to percolate through the courts. For more, stay tuned.

Members of the firm’s Environmental and Energy & Cleantech groups regularly monitor state and federal court activity with broad implications to the regulated community.