The state of Alaska is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit by eight young Alaskans arguing that efforts to build a North Slope natural gas pipeline violate the state constitution.
The lawsuit is the latest effort by young Alaskans to establish a right to a livable climate. The lawsuit was filed by the Oregon-based nonprofit Our Children’s Trust, which has pursued climate-related litigation against the federal government and in states across the country, including Montana, Utah and Hawai’i, with mixed results.
The case, known as Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, zooms in on one specific state policy: the law creating the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., the state agency pursuing investment in a pipeline that would bring liquefied natural gas from Prudhoe Bay to Southcentral Alaska for in-state and out-of-state use.
Attorney Andrew Welle argued that the eight youth plaintiffs between the ages of 12 and 23 are already suffering the effects of climate change, ranging from faltering salmon runs to flooded homes. He told Anchorage Superior Court Judge Dani Crosby that the Alaska LNG project would exacerbate the harms of climate change.
“Yet, with full knowledge of these dangers, their government has enacted and is actively carrying out a statutory mandate to advance and develop the Alaska LNG project, which, in the face of the climate emergency that is harming these plaintiffs, would more than triple Alaska’s greenhouse gas emissions of climate pollution for decades, locking in irreversible and escalating harms for these youth,” he said.
The Alaska LNG project has so far failed to attract enough investor interest for the $44 billion project to go forward.
Attorneys for the state say even if it is built, the impacts of the project are speculative. They say natural gas produced by the project may displace other, dirtier fuel sources, or it may have too small an impact on its own to have a meaningful impact on global average temperatures.
“To get where the plaintiffs are going in this case, the impact of that project on the access to fish and wildlife resources in the future, involves predictions upon predictions upon predictions,” said Assistant Attorney General Margaret Paton-Walsh. “Looking into a crystal ball and trying to determine how present-day decisions will shape the future is the work of policymakers, not courts.”
The state argues that the governor’s administration and the Alaska Legislature should be tasked with balancing the costs and benefits of the state’s climate policies — and that like the previous lawsuits, this one should be dismissed.
The latest Alaska lawsuit follows two earlier court challenges dating back to 2011 that were dismissed as overbroad and ill-suited for the court system.
Judge Crosby did not set a timeline for a decision on whether the case should be allowed to go forward.
Eric Stone covers state government, tracking the Alaska Legislature, state policy and its impact on all Alaskans. Reach him at estone@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @eriwinsto. Read more about Eric here.
