Federal court denies Trump’s last-ditch attempt to derail the youth climate lawsuit

A federal court has denied the Trump administration’s last-ditch effort to prevent a landmark climate lawsuit from going to trial. It called the motion “entirely premature” and argued that the administration had failed to reach the “high bar” required for dismissal.

“There is enduring value in the orderly administration of litigation by the trial courts, free of needless appellate interference,” wrote Chief Judge for the Ninth Circuit Sidney Thomas, who rendered the decision alongside Judges Marsha Berzon and Michelle Friedland. “If appellate review could be invoked whenever a district court denied a motion to dismiss, we would be quickly overwhelmed with such requests, and the resolution of cases would be unnecessarily delayed.”

The case brought by 21 children and young adults against the federal government for its role in perpetuating climate change has been making its way through the court system since 2015. After a district court in Oregon ruled that the lawsuit could proceed to trial, the Trump administration tried to get it dismissed by the higher court.

“The Ninth Circuit just gave us the green light for trial,” Julia Olson, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We will ask the District Court for a trial date in 2018 where we will put the federal government’s dangerous energy system and climate policies on trial for infringing the constitutional rights of young people.”

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