Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Lighthiser v. Trump Kids’ Climate Suit

1. Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged that their asserted injuries are “caused by the challenged” Executive Orders. Juliana v. United States, 947 F.3d 1159, 1168 (9th Cir. 2020).1 According to the complaint, Plaintiffs will be harmed by numerous agency actions which, Plaintiffs allege, will “implement” the Executive Orders over several years. But Plaintiffs can only speculate that the Executive Orders are the cause of the many agency actions they allege will exacerbate climate change. See G.B. ex rel. G.P. v. EPA, 172 F.4th 1042, 1060 (9th Cir. 2026) (“[A]gencies consider a great number of … factors in determining when, what, and how to regulate or take agency action.” (citation modified)); Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 412–14 (2013) (rejecting traceability theory premised on speculation that government surveillance would occur, if at all, under challenged authority rather than another). Furthermore, Plaintiffs seek to enjoin any “implementing” agency action, including those not identified in the complaint. But we “cannot presume to predict how governing officials might exercise their discretion.” G.B., 172 F.4th at 1059 (citation modified). Whether agencies will rely on the Executive Orders when taking future action “is mere conjecture.” Id. at 1061 (citation modified). For these reasons, the link between the Executive Orders and Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries is too speculative to support Article III standing. See FDA v. All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367, 383 (2024); G.B., 172 F.4th at 1058–62.

2. Plaintiffs’ requested injunctive relief is also neither “substantially likely to redress their injuries” nor “within the district court’s power to award.” Juliana, 947 F.3d at 1170 (citation omitted).

As to the first redressability prong, Plaintiffs’ standing theory suffers from a defect that mirrors their traceability problems. See All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. at 380–81 (noting that “causation and redressability … are often flip sides of the same coin” (citation modified)). They have not plausibly alleged that enjoining federal agencies from implementing the Executive Orders is substantially likely to prevent agencies from taking similar emissions-inducing actions under other lawful authorities.

Second, as in Juliana, Article III does not give federal courts the power to grant or enforce the injunctive relief Plaintiffs seek. Juliana, 947 F.3d at 1171. The Executive Orders state the President’s national security, energy, and economic policy in broad terms, then direct executive branch agencies to pursue these policy goals consistent with applicable law. Plaintiffs’ requested injunction, by its terms, would prevent the President from concluding, among other things, that it is “in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources,” Exec. Order No. 14154, 90 Fed. Reg. at 8353; that current energy infrastructure is “far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs,” Exec. Order No. 14156, 90 Fed. Reg. at 8433; and that “coal is essential to our national and economic security,” Exec. Order No. 14261, 90 Fed. Reg. at 15517. The requested injunction would likewise bar agencies from effectuating the President’s policies—”consistent with applicable law”—by reconsidering prior actions, “encourag[ing] energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters,” and “protect[ing] the United States’s economic and national security … by ensuring that an abundant supply of reliable energy is readily accessible in every State and territory of the Nation.” Exec. Order No. 14154, 90 Fed. Reg. at 8353–54.

Issuing such an injunction would effectively place one federal district court in charge of executive branch energy policy—”an extraordinary and unprecedented role” for a member of the “unelected and politically unaccountable branch.” Juliana, 947 F.3d at 1173 (citation omitted); see also id. at 1171–72 (crafting environmental policy involves “a host of complex policy decisions entrusted … to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches” (citation modified)).

Plaintiffs argue that, unlike the Juliana plaintiffs, who sought a courtsupervised “remedial plan” requiring the federal government to “draw down harmful emissions,” id. at 1170–72, they seek only “traditional prohibitory injunctive relief.” But like the district court, we are not persuaded. Similar to the injunction requested in Juliana, the injunction Plaintiffs seek would require extensive judicial supervision of executive branch actions related to energy policy. Indeed, Plaintiffs explicitly seek to undo everything from staffing reductions, to the revocation of research grants, to anticipated rule changes, to the type of language the current administration has used on government websites. To assign such policy-laden choices to one district court would invert the “common understanding of what activities are appropriate to legislatures, to executives, and to courts.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992).

Moreover, as the district court recognized, enforcing such an injunction would require a court to determine whether “an untold number” of executive branch actions even “implement” the challenged Executive Orders. That task would present challenging questions that “necessarily would entail a broad range of policymaking.” Juliana, 947 F.3d at 1172. For example, would the injunction prohibit agencies from advancing any policies like those expressed in the Executive Orders—promoting coal, oil, natural gas and hydropower; increasing domestic energy production; or expediting permitting and leasing timelines, to name a few? For every energy-policy action, would the court need to scrutinize agency officials’ motives in search of any hidden reliance on the enjoined Executive Orders? And what if an agency were to rely on other authorities in addition to the Executive Orders? The district court correctly recognized that disputes over such questions would inevitably result in the court “spending a lot of time together” with the parties and holding hearings “until the expiration of [their] collective lifetimes.” These unmanageable consequences, for which there are no judicially manageable standards, confirm that Plaintiffs’ requested injunction is beyond Article III power. Juliana, 947 F.3d at 1173–75. After all, an injunction “is only as good as the court’s power to enforce it.” Id. at 1173.

Further, by effectively challenging hundreds of current and anticipated agency actions in one lawsuit, Plaintiffs seek to circumvent the jurisdictional and procedural rules Congress has established for challenges to agency actions. See, e.g., 5 U.S.C. §§ 702, 704, 706; 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1). Such a sweeping injunction against hundreds of agency actions in one lawsuit is unprecedented. See Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871, 892–94 (1990) (explaining that rather than “wholesale” challenges to “flaws in the entire program,” a “case-by-case approach … is the traditional, and remains the normal, mode of operation of the courts” (citation modified)); see also Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 74 (1996) (“Where Congress has created a remedial scheme for the enforcement of a particular federal right, we have, in suits against federal officers, refused to supplement that scheme with one created by the judiciary.”).