California Youths Lack Standing to Sue EPA Over Climate

Friday, April 10, 2026

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Ninth Circuit:

California Youths Lack Standing to Sue EPA Over Climate

Opinion Says Complaint, Asserting That Agency’s Practice of Discounting Future Costs Discriminates Against Young People by Disincentivizing Environmental Protections, Fails to Allege Sufficient Injury

By Kimber Cooley, associate editor

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that a group of California kids and teens lacks standing to sue the federal government based on equal protection claims that assert that a purported policy of discounting future costs in the analysis of new environmental regulations discriminates against minors by favoring present-day consumers and ignores the unique effects climate change has on children.

Saying that the operative pleading “stumbled” on establishing the injury, causation, and redressability required for Article III standing, the court declared that District Court Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald of the Central District of California did not err in dismissing the action without leave to amend for lack of jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1).

Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith authored yesterday’s opinion, joined in by Circuit Judges Ronald M. Gould and Ryan D. Nelson, saying:

“[T]he Discounting Policies’ tendency to favor present-day consumption works to the present advantage of all present persons—children and adults alike. And, conversely, the Discounting Policies’ tendency to disfavor future consumption works to the future disadvantage of all future persons….The Discounting Policies do not intentionally discriminate against [minors], and Plaintiffs have pleaded no ‘invasion of a legally protected interest.’ ”

As to the harms attributed by the plaintiffs to a purported underregulation of greenhouse gas emissions (“GHGs”) as an asserted result of the discounting policy—including respiratory conditions as well as disruptions to school and certain religious practices allegedly due to wildfires, heatwaves, and other extreme weather incidents—Smith declared:

“In our view, Plaintiffs’ theory of causation is too speculative…to invoke this Court’s subject matter jurisdiction.”

Cost-Benefit Analysis

At issue is a policy that was purportedly initiated by a 2003 Office of Management and Budget memorandum entitled “Circular A-4,” which issues guidance to federal agencies on how to conduct the cost-benefit analysis required for significant regulatory actions since the early 1980s by presidential administrations from both parties.

The memorandum articulates that agencies should generally discount future costs and benefits to present value based on economic principles rooted in the time-value of money or the assumption that a dollar today is usually more valuable than one received later.

Later guidelines adopt the standard while recognizing that “the normative choice of how a decision maker should weigh the welfare of present and future generations…cannot be made on economic grounds alone.”

On Dec. 10, 2023, 18 California residents, at that time ranging in age from 8 to 17, filed a complaint by and through their guardians against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and then-Administrator Michael S. Regan, asserting equal protection claims under the Fifth Amendment.

They asserted injuries to their health and well-being purportedly caused by “a government-imposed…climate crisis” and sought a declaratory judgment recognizing “children” as a protected class and that the defendants’ conduct in failing to adequately regulate GHGs violates their constitutional rights.

In May 2024, Fitzgerald granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss with leave to amend, saying that “plaintiff must show [a concrete] injury…; traceable to the defendant[]…; and likely to be redressed by a [favorable] decision,” and that “the declaratory judgment sought by Plaintiffs is unlikely to redress their injuries.”

Amended Complaint

The plaintiffs filed an amended pleading a few weeks later, centering the new complaint explicitly on the government’s discounting policy. Asserting that they are “members of a protected and disenfranchised class” who are “politically and economically powerless,” they alleged:

“Children in the western United States regularly breathe into their lungs air polluted by toxic smoke from climate-fueled wildfires and fossil fuel operations….Children are losing the ability to practice their Indigenous, religious, spiritual, and cultural traditions and their individual dignity. Children face shortened lifespans…and an accumulation of otherwise avoidable adverse childhood events, such as loss of dignity, with lifelong consequences. Plaintiffs, as individual Children, have experienced each of these harms. Each of these injuries is not static, and will certainly worsen, with some becoming irreparable in Plaintiffs’ lifetimes, if Defendants’ Discounting Policies and practices challenged here are allowed to continue.”

In February 2025, Fitzgerald granted a defense motion to dismiss, this time without leave to amend, finding that the plaintiffs had failed to plead facts showing that the discounting policies are discriminatory against young people and that their asserted environmental harms are traceable to the government’s practice.

Standing Burden

Smith wrote:

“[I]n an effort to carry their standing burden, Plaintiffs allege that the Government’s Discounting Policies discriminate against children…and cause them downstream ‘mental, physical, and economic injuries’ related to the ‘climate crisis.’ To remedy these alleged injuries, Plaintiffs seek injunctive and declaratory relief….[T]he district court held (1) that Plaintiffs’ discrimination theory failed to assert an injury-in fact, (2) that Plaintiffs’ alleged environmental harms are not fairly traceable to the Discounting Policies, (3) that Plaintiffs’ request for declaratory relief is not likely to redress their asserted injuries, and (4) that granting Plaintiffs further leave to amend their complaint would be futile. We agree on all four points.”

As to whether the plaintiffs alleged a viable injury to their equal protection rights, he pointed out that “[t]he denial of equal protection is actionable where the government acts with ‘discriminatory intent or purpose’ ” and recognized that “evidence of a disproportionate impact might bear on the question” of whether an action was motivated by bias.

Noting that the plaintiffs focus on one particular rationale for the discounting principle announced in Circular A-4, that “people generally prefer present to future consumption,” as operating as a proxy for discrimination against children. Rejecting the contention, he said:

“As the Government notes, children are present-day consumers just like adults. Persons under 18 years old wield significant economic power—both directly and, by influencing adults’ decisions, indirectly….They hold jobs….They eat at restaurants….They consume online content and….buy books, magazines, and other…media….”

Children as Consumers

Saying that “[t]here are, of course, differences between adults’ and children’s consumption,” he remarked that none of those distinctions leads to an “inference that ‘children are not consumers,’ as Plaintiffs proclaim.”

Acknowledging that plaintiffs’ economic expert, Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor of economics, opined that children will endure more of the harm allegedly inflicted by the discounting policies due to the likelihood that they will live longer, but said:

“Perhaps. But without more, that is not a cognizable theory of discrimination under the Constitution.”

Addressing the plaintiff’s assertion that Fitzgerald “impermissibly resolved fact disputes in the Government’s favor,” the jurist said that “[t]he question whether a plaintiff’s allegations of harm assert an Article III injury is a legal determination—not a factual one.”

Turning to causation, he concluded that “[o]nly by stacking one ‘hypothetical assumption[]’ on top of another can we deduce that…the Government’s alleged discounting practice…will inflict any future harm on the young plaintiffs before us” and, as to redressability, he declared:

“Issuing the declaration sought would merely beg the question: now what? Absent a further judicial order, presumably one with more bite, how would a declaration of the targeted policies’ unconstitutionality mitigate the young plaintiffs’ physical symptoms or property damage? Plaintiffs have supplied no answer.”

Commenting that the plaintiffs “did not…identify any new allegations they could plead that would avert a third dismissal order,” the judge declared:

“The district court’s order dismissing Plaintiffs’ case without leave to amend the complaint is AFFIRMED.”

The case is G.B. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 25-2473.