Climate Litigation & Citizen Suits: Assessing the Legal Landscape for Environmental Causes of Action

In administrative law, attention to litigation focuses on judicial review of agency action. In the environmental realm, however, private actions exert an outsized influence on the administration of the law.

This is most obviously true with respect to climate change. More than 3,000 climate lawsuits have been filed. At present, these lawsuits primarily take two forms: 1) state-law causes of action like trespass, failure to warn, and deceptive marketing; and 2) constitutional claims (state and federal). Plaintiffs typically seek damages from carbon-intensive businesses, injunctive relief compelling governmental action, or both. It takes only one of these lawsuits to be successful to effectuate national climate policy.

Besides climate litigation, another increasingly consequential environmental action is the so-called “citizen suit.” Virtually all federal environmental statutes allow “any person” to sue private parties for regulatory violations. Instead of “citizens,” these suits usually are brought by sophisticated non-governmental organizations, acting as private attorneys general. Today, these groups are waging unprecedented citizen suit campaigns to drive environmental enforcement from outside the Executive Branch.

We seek papers that explore the legal and policy issues associated with causes of action. We welcome papers on this topic from numerous perspectives, including:

1. The circuit courts are split on the applicability of federal preemption to state-law climate suits, and the matter seems destined for resolution by the Supreme Court. Was the Second Circuit correct to find preemption in City of New York v. Chevron? Or did that court reach the right result, but through the wrong reasoning–that is, are there better legal arguments for preemption? Or is the Second Circuit wrong?
2. Beyond preemption, what other constitutional defenses are available in the context of state-law climate suits? Some have suggested the Dormant Commerce Clause or the Due Process Clause may apply here, and we welcome elaborations on these arguments. Also, what can Congress do?
3. Is there a federal constitutional right to a certain atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases? Do environmental protection provisions in state constitutions provide an actionable right to certain climatic conditions?
4. In recent decades, the doctrine of Article III standing has been in flux. How do these changes affect the viability of environmental citizen suits? What does the future hold with respect to standing and citizen suits?
5. If, as the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, the Executive Branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to prosecute federal law, then how do citizen suits comport with Article II’s vesting and Take Care Clauses? In the wake of Supreme Court’s recent Appointments Clause cases, may these “citizens” be considered “officers” in a constitutional sense?
6. After Consumers Research v FCC, do “private attorneys general” raise concerns under the private nondelegation doctrine? Relatedly, does Congress aggrandize power directly to itself by exercising the appointments power of the President through citizen suit provisions?
7. There is a dearth of empirical data about citizen suits. We seek papers that fill this gap, by accounting for and analyzing these lawsuits in a systematic manner. Are patterns evident? Where are the circuit courts split on legal questions relating to citizen suits? We welcome these sorts of empirical investigations.

The list above is non-exclusive.

Please submit a brief research proposal that describes your thesis and how your research will contribute to the legal issues described above.

Proposals should be submitted by January 15, 2026 to Sydney Madigan at . Early proposal submission is encouraged, as proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and approvals will allow authors to begin work early.