SPOKANE — Self-proclaimed “Raging Grannies” and other protesters who were arrested last year for blocking rail traffic sued the federal government Tuesday, alleging violations of their constitutional right to a livable climate.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Spokane, cites a ruling by Oregon U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken in December that government actions damaging the climate are grounds for a legal claim. Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, a Gonzaga Law School alumnus and contract attorney for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, is representing the protesters and Gunnar Holmquist, a Spokane physician sponsoring a ballot initiative to ban coal and oil trains through downtown.
The Spokane City Council was set to ask voters to weigh in on a potential oil and coal train ban through downtown, citing derailments in Mosier, Ore., as evidence the shipments posed danger to downtown and the Spokane aquifer. The council reversed course, citing legal advisement the local ban would be pre-empted by federal law.
The protesters’ lawsuit asks the courts to declare that federal law, the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act, unconstitutional, because it prevents local governments from enacting policies to “stop climate change.”
