UC Berkeley sophomores Ariela Lara and Maya Williams joined 16 other youth plaintiffs in front of the San Francisco courtroom of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to argue for the reinstatement of their case, Genesis B. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Represented by Our Children’s Trust, a public interest nonprofit law firm, the youth plaintiffs allege that the EPA has failed to adequately regulate greenhouse gases, subsequently “harming children’s health” and “discounting the economic value of their lives,” according to the firm’s website. The group of California youth plaintiffs filed Genesis v. EPA in 2023 when they were all under 18 years old.
“The plaintiffs in this case have developed asthma after regular exposure to wildfire smoke and other air pollution, and that asthma is triggered by increasing climate pollution,” said Our Children’s Trust staff attorney Brianna Rosier Kabwika in an email. “Some plaintiffs have lost homes and other property to wildfires and have been displaced for months at a time disrupting what should be a normal childhood.”
Lara, an East Bay local, began organizing for environmental justice at 14 years old.
Lara noted that she grew up seeing climate change disproportionately affect BIPOC communities living in areas “vulnerable to climate disasters.” She said her family members and friends were diagnosed with asthma or cancer due to the nearby burning of fossil fuels.
“Today as a college student and 7 years later I still carry this weight and it has gotten heavier with the environmental rollbacks and blatant disregard for our communities,” Lara said in an email.
Williams was diagnosed with asthma after the 2019 wildfire season. She claims that wildfire smoke worsens her condition, impacts her academic performance and causes her severe headaches, according to the Our Children’s Trust website.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Williams said she has been exposed to flooding, heat waves, power outages and resulting school closures.
“When the EPA decides how much pollution to allow, they employ discounting rates in their cost-benefit analyses that count the lives of children as worth less than the lives of adults,” Williams said in an email. “Children have constitutional rights to life and equal protection of the law, and our constitutional rights are being violated by our own government, who is supposed to protect us.”
On Feb. 11, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald granted the EPA’s motion to dismiss the case, forcing the plaintiffs to amend their suit, according to the website. The decision on whether the case will be reinstated will be announced in the coming months.
Genesis v. EPA is part of a larger initiative within Our Children’s Trust to achieve a legal right to a healthy environment.
The firm is involved in more than 10 legal battles. In 2023, it won a landmark case, Held v. State of Montana, in which it argued that state fossil fuel laws deprived children of their constitutional rights by increasing the effects of climate change.
After arguments were heard Thursday, nearly 100 community members gathered outside the courthouse to show support for the plaintiffs.
“It was a powerful reminder that we are not alone in this fight, and that there is a whole movement of people ready to carry this work forward no matter the outcome of the hearing,” Williams said in the email.