Sierra Club v. Department of Energy

In an unpublished decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) authorization of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from a facility in Maryland. The court said its August 2017 decision rejecting challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Natural Gas Act to DOE’s authorization of LNG exports at a Texas facility largely governed the resolution of the instant case, as well as two other cases concerning facilities in Louisiana and Texas. The court addressed three narrow issues that remained in one or more of the cases. First, it said the determination not to prepare an environmental impact statement in this case and one of the other cases was not arbitrary and capricious. Second, it found that DOE had not acted arbitrarily and capriciously by not conducting more localized analysis of where the Maryland facility's exports would result in increased production. Finally, in all three cases, the court found that DOE adequately considered distributional impacts in its evaluation of “public interest” under the Natural Gas Act.

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