Montana judge backs green activists asserting right to clean environment

A Montana judge has sided with a group of young environmentalists who sued the state over its regulations of the fossil fuel industry, contending that Helena's policies had violated their rights to a clean environment.

District Court Judge Kathy Seeley, in a Monday ruling, determined that the state's criteria for considering fossil fuel permits were unconstitutional. Montana does not let agencies evaluate the effects of emissions when granting such permits, according to the Associated Press.

"Montana’s emissions and climate change have been proven to be a substantial factor in causing climate impacts to Montana’s environment and harm and injury," she wrote.

A spokeswoman for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen indicated that his office would appeal the decision.

"This ruling is absurd, but not surprising from a judge who let the plaintiffs' attorneys put on a weeklong taxpayer-funded publicity stunt that was supposed to be a trial," the spokeswoman said.

"Montanans can’t be blamed for changing the climate — even the plaintiffs' expert witnesses agreed that our state has no impact on the global climate," she continued. "Their same legal theory has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states. It should have been here as well, but they found an ideological judge who bent over backward to allow the case to move forward and earn herself a spot in their next documentary."

Barring successful appeal, the state legislature must reevaluate its permitting guidelines, which the outlet noted presented little prospect for substantive policy change in light of Republican control of the legislature.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.