El Puente v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that federal defendants did not act arbitrarily or capriciously when they reviewed the potential impacts of a proposal to dredge San Juan Harbor in Puerto Rico. The D.C. Circuit found that the petitioners had failed to argue to the U.S. Corps of Engineers that consideration of the environmental impacts of potential construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal was required and therefore forfeited these LNG arguments. The court also found that the Corps’s analysis of cumulative impacts and environmental justice was adequate and rejected arguments that the Corps and the National Marine Fisheries Service did not properly consider the project’s effects on threatened coral species.

The federal district court for the District of Columbia rejected claims that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated federal environmental laws when it approved a project to dredge shipping channels in San Juan Harbor and dispose of the dredged materials in an ocean disposal site. The court’s decision did not explicitly address the plaintiffs’ allegations that the project would increase imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), leading to emissions that would worsen climate change. The decision did, however, reject the argument that the Corps should have considered potential new LNG infrastructure as a “connected action.” The court also found that the Corps considered the impacts of the possibility that Puerto Rico would convert to LNG and reasonably concluded that such a conversion would result in lower air emissions.

Three organizations filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers San Juan Bay Dredging Project. The plaintiffs alleged that “[t]he primary purpose of dredging is for larger tankers of liqu[e]fied natural gas (LNG) and petroleum to transit the bay” and that the Corps’ environmental review had “ignored how its decision locked in a fossil fuel pathway for Puerto Rico” and impaired a transition away from fossil fuels. They contended that the project would increase LNG imports to power plants whose emissions would worsen climate change and air pollution. They also said the project risked an increase of wave action and changes to sea level near residential areas. They asserted claims under NEPA, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.