FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 17, 2026

Contacts:  
Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel, 415.786.4825, julia@ourchildrenstrust.org   
Helen Britto, Communications Director, 925.588.1171, helen@ourchildrenstrust.org
Nicole Funaro, Director of Media & Storytelling, communications@publicjustice.net

En banc petition argues three-judge panel ignored uncontested evidence and Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent, and improperly abandoned its constitutional duty

SAN FRANCISCO — As wildfire smoke blankets North America, the 22 youth plaintiffs in Lighthiser v. Trump, filed a petition yesterday asking the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear their constitutional climate case and correct the three-judge panel’s abdication of law and duty. The petition argues that the three-judge panel’s decision is the first circuit court opinion in U.S. history to deny Article III judicial power to review an unconstitutional executive order, making this a case of exceptional importance that warrants en banc review.

On June 2, 2026, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit dismissed the case without deciding whether the executive orders are constitutional or whether the youth plaintiffs are being harmed by the federal government’s conduct. The district court in Montana had previously found “overwhelming evidence” that the plaintiffs are being harmed by climate change, that the executive orders are worsening those harms, and that fossil fuel pollution is driving a “children’s health emergency.” The panel disregarded those findings, ruling that the youth plaintiffs could not challenge the President’s sweeping executive orders and their coordinated implementation in a single lawsuit.

The petition identifies three fundamental errors in the panel’s decision. First, the panel ignored uncontested facts and evidence and the district court’s own factual findings, including that the executive orders will generate an additional 205 million annual metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2027, rising to 510 million metric tons annually by 2035, and that implementation of the orders is already underway across the federal government. Rather than accepting the factual allegations and findings as true, as required at the motion-to-dismiss stage, the panel substituted its own speculation, concluding that the link between the executive orders and the plaintiffs’ injuries was “mere conjecture.”

Second, the panel’s reasoning has already been rejected by the Supreme Court, in multiple recent decisions the panel never cited. The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariff executive orders and his birthright citizenship executive order using the same legal standards that should have applied here. The panel ignored all of it.

Third, by ruling that courts have no power to review these executive orders at all, the panel put the Ninth Circuit at odds with the D.C., First, and Fourth Circuits, all of which have recently upheld the right to challenge executive orders on constitutional grounds.

The June 2026 panel decision was issued as an unpublished opinion, meaning the court itself indicated it should not be used as precedent. Yet its reasoning, if left unchecked, would effectively shield any executive order from judicial review so long as it states its goals in broad terms and directs agencies to implement them consistently with applicable law.

“Two hundred and fifty years ago, America declared that every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” said lead plaintiff Eva Lighthiser. “But what does the right to life mean when wildfire smoke sends us to the hospital? What does liberty mean when we cannot go outside? What does the pursuit of happiness mean when we lie awake filled with anxiety about our futures? The Constitution gave us the tools to hold our government to its promise. We are 22 young people using exactly those tools, and we are asking the full Ninth Circuit to do its part. Two hundred and fifty years later, the promise still has to mean something.”

“The panel’s decision is the first in American history to deny courts the power to review an unconstitutional executive order. That is not a small mistake. That is constitutional corruption,” said Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel and Co-Executive Director of Our Children’s Trust. “No president should be able to direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda that endangers children’s lives and face zero judicial review. The full Ninth Circuit has the opportunity and the obligation to correct that.”

“A vital function of our court system is to act as a system of checks and balances, both on our policy-makers and on itself,” said Dan Snyder, Director of Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Project. “We’re asking the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to do its job and rehear this important case, to check itself, and recognize that this administration’s unconstitutional executive orders are harming our children.”

Lighthiser v. Trump was filed in May 2025 on behalf of 22 young Americans from Montana, Oregon, Hawai’i, California, and Florida. In September of that year, the case made history when youth plaintiffs presented live testimony in a federal constitutional climate case for the first time in U.S. history, with expert witnesses including a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta testifying without contradiction that the executive orders are already making the plaintiffs’ lives worse.

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Our Children’s Trust empowers young people to enforce their constitutional rights in court when governments endanger their lives, health, and futures by fueling the climate crisis. For more information, visit www.ourchildrenstrust.org

Public Justice takes on the most significant systemic threats to justice of our time — abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights and liberties, and the destruction of the earth’s sustainability. We link high-impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to combat these abusive and discriminatory systems and achieve social and economic justice. For more information, visit www.public-justice.org