Ryan Busse is running for governor of Montana, a major coal state, as a Democrat after two of his children sued the state over climate change and emissions, E&E News reported Tuesday.
Busse’s two teenage sons were plaintiffs in Held v. Montana, in which a group of Montana youths sued the state on the grounds that prioritizing fossil fuel development violates their rights by contributing to climate change, according to E&E News. Busse, a former executive in the gun industry, has not played up the lawsuit on the campaign trail in his race against incumbent Republican Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who appears to hold a sizable lead in the race with a few weeks to go until Election Day.
While a Montana judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the youth climate case in August 2023, critics have derided the ruling as “absurd” and a political stunt rather than an earnest decision grounded in statute, according to the Montana Free Press. The Sierra Club, a major environmental activist group, celebrated the ruling as a major victory, in part because it “[sets] a precedent for further lawsuits” against disfavored energy production and policies.
Montana is the sixth largest coal-producing state and sits atop of the largest estimated recoverable coal reserves of any state in the country, according to the Energy Information Administration. Busse has heard from voters concerned about the kids’ climate case given the energy industry’s economic importance to the state, and Busse reportedly has not touted the lawsuit while campaigning despite his strong views on climate change and its causes.
“The idea that we stick our heads in the sand and don’t consider carbon dioxide as a pollutant is foolhardy and anti-science,” Busse told E&E News. “I think Gianforte is an anti-science governor and doesn’t want to address the reality of where we are.”
Busse also praised the young activists, including his sons, for their “urgency” when it comes to pursuing major change in his interview with E&E News.
“There’s an impatience, an urgency in today’s youth that is admirable,” Busse told the outlet. “I look at my own trajectory, and I think I have been too patient. I have not been urgent enough.”
However, Busse has not gone so far as to agree with calls from young people to call for the end of fossil fuels on the campaign trail, according to E&E News.
“They want us to do and say more, but I think we should be careful to be realists,” Busse told E&E News regarding an encounter with a young person who asked about why more politicians are not calling to abolish fossil fuels. “To advocate for a world where [fossil fuels] just go away, it’s not a political reality, and it’s not a policy reality.”
Montana State Senate Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick echoed Busse’s suggestion that making climate change a top issue is not a “political reality” in the state, he told E&E News.
“There’s not much of a market in the Montana electorate for climate change activism,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a topic for rich white liberals, and that’s not the Montana electorate,” Fitzpatrick told the outlet. “It’s not a topic that the regular working guy or woman has on the top of their agenda.”
Busse’s campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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