This is a special edition of Ecotones, Part 2 of our daily audio digest for June 19, 2023, Day 6 of the historic Held v State of Montana. It was the second week of the trial, which began on June 12, 2023 in the Lewis & Clark County District Court in Helena, MT – Judge Kathy Seeley presiding. Attorneys for The 16 youth plaintiffs rested their case on Friday, June 16th.

Because of limited radio broadcast time, we had to leave Part 1 of the June 19, 2023 session after the direct examination of Sonja Nowakowski, Administrator for the Air, Energy, and Mining Division at Montana DEQ. We now continue with the cross examination of Administrator Nowakowski by Barbara Chillcott, Senior attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC).

This is followed by The final of only 3 state witnesses, Dr. Terry Anderson, an economist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and emeritus professor at Montana State University. He presented a brief testimony of under 15 minutes of carefully limited inquiry from defense attorneys related to Energy Information Administration data on GHG emissions.

Under blistering cross examination by plaintiff attorney, Philip Gregory, Of Counsel with Our Children’s Trust, who asked about errors in his math and misinterpretation of data in Dr. Anderson’s expert report. The State initially objected, stating the questions exceeded the scope of their direct examination, which consisted of only five questions. However, plaintiffs’ counsel argued that the cross examination went to credibility of the witness. Judge Kathy Seeley overruled the State’s objections, allowing Mr. Gregory to pursue beyond scope of the direct to probe questions of his credibility.

The state had originally listed Dr. Judith Curry as one of their expert witnesses, however they withdrew her name last week without explanation, after pre-rebuttals by numerous plaintiff’s expert witnesses.