{"id":103264,"date":"2025-08-23T02:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T02:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/103264\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T02:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T02:33:07","slug":"wisconsin-youth-sue-state-utility-regulator-over-failure-to-consider-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/103264\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin youth sue state utility regulator over failure to consider climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

On August 9 and 10, a massive storm over southeastern Wisconsin dropped up to 13 inches of rain in just a few hours, sending floodwater gushing downriver and destroying more than 1,800 homes<\/a> in Milwaukee. The disaster was the second-worst two-day rain event<\/a> in the United States since 1871.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, scientists have warned about what can happen when climate change supercharges extreme weather events. This is exactly what they meant,\u201d the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal<\/a> reported, describing the disaster as a 1,000-year flood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, more than a dozen youth from Wisconsin, including Indigenous youth, are filing a lawsuit against the state\u2019s utility regulator to force it to consider climate change when evaluating new fossil fuel projects.<\/p>\n

Currently, Wisconsin law blocks the Public Service Commission from taking air pollution \u2014\u00a0including carbon dioxide emissions \u2014 into consideration during the permitting process. Fifteen children and teenagers, ages 8 to 17, filed a lawsuit Friday against the utility regulator alleging that the law violates their constitutional rights to life and liberty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The case is part of a growing climate litigation movement led in part by Indigenous youth<\/a>. Twelve-year-old Miahlin B., who goes by her tribal name Waazakone, and her three siblings joined the lawsuit because climate change is eroding their traditional ways of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The children harvest wild rice, which is sacred to their communities, but warming temperatures are making it harder to grow rice successfully. They tap sugar maple trees to make maple sugar, but last year came up dry in part because of a shorter winter season. They fish for walleye and sturgeon, but both fish populations are shrinking as waters warm.<\/p>\n

\"AMiahlin B., who goes by Waazakone, joined the lawsuit to protect her tribe\u2019s traditional ways of life.
\n Nitumigaabow Champagne \/ Our Children\u2019s Trust<\/p>\n

Waazakone told Grist she wants to protect her community for future generations. She describes herself as a water protector, explaining that caring for water is part of her responsibility as a female member of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need the government to understand that clean water and air is a human right and our most valuable resource,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The youth plaintiffs are also challenging a Wisconsin law that prohibits the Public Service Commission from mandating more renewable energy from local utilities. Right now, about three-fourths of the state\u2019s electricity generation<\/a> comes from fossil fuels like oil and gas. That\u2019s on par with the national average, but lags far behind states like South Dakota where more than 75 percent of its state energy production comes from renewables.<\/a><\/p>\n

The plaintiffs are represented by Midwest Environmental Advocates<\/a>, a Madison-based environmental nonprofit law center, and Our Children\u2019s Trust<\/a>, an Oregon-based nonprofit dedicated to advancing youth-led climate litigation.<\/p>\n

The latter is perhaps best known for its successful litigation against the state of Montana in Held v. Montana. In December, the state\u2019s Supreme Court affirmed<\/a> that Montana youth have a constitutional right to \u201ca clean and healthful environment,\u201d and concluded that the state should take greenhouse gas emissions into account when considering new fossil fuel projects. The state hasn\u2019t considered any new oil and gas projects since then, so it remains to be seen what that will look like in practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2018We have been heard\u2019: Montana youth score a major climate victory in court<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWisconsin doesn\u02bbt have any fossil fuel extraction like Montana, but they do continue to have an electricity sector that\u2019s dominated by fossil fuels. It\u02bbs the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state,\u201d said Our Children\u2019s Trust attorney Nate Bellinger, who is representing the Wisconsin plaintiffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The nonprofit has filed dozens of lawsuits in the U.S. over the last decade and a half, including one against the Trump administration\u02bbs reversal of President Joe Biden\u02bbs climate policies. Last year, they helped secure a landmark settlement in Hawai\u02bbi with the case Navahine v. Hawai\u02bbi Department of Transportation, where youth plaintiffs contended that the state\u2019s commitment to expanding infrastructure to support gas-powered cars and disregard for cleaner options violated their constitutional right to \u201ca clean and healthful environment.\u201d There, the state agreed to develop a plan to zero out carbon emissions from its transportation sector by 2045.<\/p>\n

In Wisconsin, the constitutional right to a clean environment isn\u2019t as explicit as in Montana or Hawai\u2019i, where there is language in the state constitution spelling out that right. Wisconsin Democrats tried unsuccessfully earlier this year<\/a> to add that language to the state constitution. But the attorneys in this new case are arguing that a stable climate system is necessary to achieve the constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maria Antonia Tigre, director of global climate change litigation at the Sabin Center for Climate Change at Columbia Law, said lawsuits like this take on new salience in light of the Trump administration\u2019s rollback of climate action. \u201cIt\u2019s even more important to bring these cases now given the current state of the United States\u2019 stance on climate change in general,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman from the Wisconsin Public Service Commission declined to comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n

As state leaders grapple with mounting costs of flood recovery and plead for federal assistance<\/a>, Waazakone hopes that her lawsuit forces them to take climate change seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the state of Wisconsin to realize that you cannot allow businesses and people to continue to erode our futures,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On August 9 and 10, a massive storm over southeastern Wisconsin dropped up to 13 inches of rain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-103264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}