Media Coverage
Source: Law360
Media Coverage
06.21.13
Opponents of oil and gas drilling are having little success in establishing a direct link between greenhouse emissions and harm to their communities in courts. Recent courtroom defeats highlight that judges are sticking to the Article III standing test established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1992 ruling in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife. The court held that in order to bring a suit, plaintiffs must suffer a concrete injury that is actual or imminent, which can be traced to the challenged conduct and can be redressed by the court.
“Courts are not departing from their traditional standing principles just because climate change is involved,” said Mike McDonough, an environmental partner in Pillsbury’s Los Angeles office.
According to McDonough, the plaintiffs in these cases have difficulty in proving concrete injury and tracing the cause of damage.
He discussed a recent case in Montana, where the district judge ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to allege a concrete injury because they couldn’t prove methane emissions would cause localized damages as well as failed to trace the climate change damages. “I think what this decision showed you is that they’re all basically linked together. If you can’t show injury in fact, how are you going to show there’s causation? If you can’t show causation, how do you redress any of that?”