Family members, politicians and members of the Montana Supreme Court welcomed newly elected Chief Justice Cory Swanson during a swearing-in ceremony Monday in Helena, marking the beginning of a new leadership chapter for the state’s highest court.

In a years-long fight to stop a power plant near Laurel from releasing the pollution equivalent of 167,000 cars per year, the Montana Supreme Court decided unanimously that both the state’s Department of Environmental Quality as well as NorthWestern Energy had skirted the state’s environmental law by refusing to acknowledge or take action on the greenhouse