A Helena-area district court judge has declined to transfer a major Montana climate lawsuit to a court in Sidney, preserving the case’s current jurisdiction in the First Judicial District and rejecting arguments from House Speaker Brandon Ler that the venue was improperly concentrated in western Montana.
The Ruling
District Court Judge Mike Menehan denied the motion to move Held v. Montana II to the Seventh Judicial District in Sidney — a drive of more than seven hours from Broadwater County, where the case was originally filed. Broadwater County is part of the First Judicial District, which it shares with Lewis and Clark County.
Menehan ruled that the current venue is proper because the lawsuit names multiple defendants: the state of Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte, and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. With the challenged statutes reaching statewide, the judge found no grounds to relocate the proceedings.
What the Case Challenges
Held v. Montana II is a follow-up to the landmark 2023 Held v. Montana decision, in which a state court found that Montanans have a constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, including a stable climate system. The new lawsuit targets three measures passed by the 2025 Legislature.
House Bill 285 and Senate Bill 221 each narrowed the scope of environmental reviews conducted under the Montana Environmental Policy Act. House Bill 291, meanwhile, bars the state from setting air pollutant standards that are stricter than federal thresholds — a provision that has drawn scrutiny from environmental groups concerned about Montana’s ability to regulate local air quality independently. The EPA recently reduced its lead threshold for the Butte Superfund site, illustrating the ongoing tension over how far federal standards can stretch to meet local environmental conditions.
Senate Bill 221 was sponsored by Sen. Wylie Galt, whose district includes a portion of Broadwater County — a fact that factored into the venue analysis, since one of the challenged laws has a legislative sponsor representing the county where the case was filed.
The Venue Fight
Speaker Ler pursued the transfer by invoking Senate Bill 97, a 2025 law that grants bill sponsors a right to intervene in litigation challenging their legislation. Ler argued that this provision supported moving the case to a district more geographically distant from the state capital.
“For too long, politically charged lawsuits have been funneled into the same courts before the same judges,” Ler said in arguing for the change. “Montana is a big state, and justice should not be concentrated in a few zip codes.”
Thirty-eight Republican legislators joined as amici curiae in support of the venue transfer, while six left-leaning organizations — among them the ACLU of Montana and the Montana Public Interest Research Group — sought to intervene on the opposing side. After Menehan kept the case in its current venue, he denied both sets of amici requests as moot.
Broader Context
The venue dispute reflects a broader political tension over where high-profile environmental litigation is litigated in Montana. Critics of the current arrangement argue that routing lawsuits through Lewis and Clark County gives plaintiffs a favorable forum near the state capital and its legal infrastructure. Supporters of the current venue counter that cases challenging statewide laws and executive-branch agencies logically belong in courts with statewide jurisdiction.
The original Held ruling set a significant legal precedent that the state’s constitution protects a right to climate stability — a finding that Republican legislators have sought to limit through subsequent legislation. The 2025 measures now at issue in Held v. Montana II represent the Legislature’s most direct response to that ruling, making the outcome of the new case a high-stakes test of how far the constitutional right recognized in 2023 actually extends.
With the venue question settled, the litigation will proceed in the First Judicial District. No trial date has been publicly announced.
