User:Bbcook808/Climate Change Litigation

United States
As of February 2020, the U.S. had the most pending cases with over 1000 in the court system. Examples include Connecticut v. ExxonMobil Corp. and Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency. In the United States climate change litigation addresses existing principal laws to make their claim, most of them focusing on private and administrative law. The most popular principal laws to use are NEPA (The National Environmental Protection Act), with 322 cases filed under its jurisdiction, the Clean Air Act, with 215 cases filed under its jurisdiction, the Endangered Species Act, with 163 cases filed under its jurisdiction.

Actions Using the Endangered Species Act
In the seminal Endangered Species Act (ESA) case, Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, the Supreme Court stated that the ESA mandates federal agencies to insure their actions do not jeopardize any species that are listed as endangered in the ESA. As climate change is a large threat to endangered species, climate activists have been able to use the ESA to target those accelerating climate change. Climate change litigation cases that use the ESA primarily focus on articles 7 and 9 of the statue. Article 7 states that all actions carried out by federal agencies must be unlikely to jeopardize the continued existence or result in the destruction of endangered species. Article 9 focuses not just on federal agencies but everybody, banning the taking of any endangered species by any party, be it federal, state, or private. By proving that actions taken by those who are contributing to climate change jeopardize animals listed on the ESA, climate activists are able to use the ESA to stop actions contributing to climate change.

In many cases the first step for climate change activists is to make sure that species threatened by climate change are listed on the ESA by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Often times this alone can be a lengthy process. In December of 2005 the Center for Biological Diversity joined with two other US NGOs (Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council) to petition that the Arctic Polar Bear be listed on the ESA. The FWS under the Bush administration stretched the process out for years, missing many key deadlines and listing the species as "threatened" instead of endangered while the science was clearly in favor of an endangered listing. Facing mass public pressure and scientific consensus the FWS officially listed the species as endangered in May of 2008.

Actions Using the National Environmental Protection Act
The National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA, recognizes that actions taken by the US government can have significant environmental impact and requires that all federal agencies consider these environmental implications when doing "major federal actions". This can be done either through an environmental assessment (EA) or a more thorough environmental impact statement (EIS), how thorough the analyzation has to be depends on the nature of the proposed action. NEPA does not require climate change or greenhouse gases be mentioned in all EA's and EIS's, but many climate change activists will sue under NEPA claiming that the impacts related to climate change are relevant enough that they should be included.

NEPA does not guarantee an outcome like the ESA does, but just requires that all agencies consider all environmental impacts of their decisions before implementing them. Due to this, agencies can still follow through with projects that do accelerate climate change, as long as the consequences are well researched

Actions Using the Clear Air Act
The Clean Air Act, or CAA, regulates air pollutants both from stationary and mobile sources. The Act was passed in the 1970's before there was widespread knowledge about greenhouse gases (GHGs) but in 2007 the Supreme Court decided the EPA did have to regulate GHGs under the CAA due to the famous Massachusetts vs. The EPA case. As a result of this, climate change activists are able to use the CAA as a means to combat GHG emissions in order to fight the acceleration of climate change.

In 2009 the state of California was able to use the CAA to create stronger vehicle emission standards than the national standard, which quickly led to the Obama administration adopting these stricter emission standards on a national level. These standards were called the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards and included regulations of GHGs.