Sierra Club v. U.S. Defense Energy Support Center

A federal district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club against a government agency on standing grounds. In its dismissal, the district court held that the Sierra Club failed to establish a causal connection between the alleged injuries and continued procurement of crude from the Canadian oil sands given that climate change is a global problem.

The district court granted a motion to transfer venue to the Eastern District of Virginia, holding that the plaintiffs had met their burden in meeting the elements required to transfer the case. 

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the U.S. military from buying fuels derived from Canadian oil sands, alleging that the fuels violate Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), which states that for federal agency purchases of fuels produced from nonconventional sources like oil sands, “the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and combustion of the fuel supplied under the contract must, on an ongoing basis, be less than or equal to such emissions from the equivalent conventional fuel produced from conventional petroleum sources.” Sierra Club contends that given the higher GHG emissions associated with oil sands production, the Defense Department is violating the EISA as well as the Administrative Procedure Act and NEPA. On September 29, 2010, several business and energy trade groups sought to intervene in the case, arguing that because oil sands fuels are often blended by refiners from other types of crude oil, it would be virtually impossible to apply the EISA restriction to Canadian oil imports.