- Climate Litigation Database
- /
- Search
- /
- Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Energy
Collection
Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Energy
Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Department of Energy ↗
23-1214D.C. Cir.1 entry
Filing Date
Type
Action Taken
Document
Summary
08/11/2023
Petition
Petition for review filed.
Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club filed a petition for review in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) April 2023 order approving exports of liquefied natural gas from the Alaska LNG Project and a DOE order denying rehearing of the April 2023 order. In a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-federal-approval-of-alaska-lng-exports-2023-08-11/">press release</a> announcing the lawsuit, an attorney for one of the petitioner organizations said that “[t]his expensive, climate-polluting project is not in the public interest—it is a boondoggle that would undermine the Biden administration’s climate goals and needlessly lay waste to Alaska’s lands and waters, imperiling communities and threatening wildlife.” The petitioners’ <a href="https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/request-for-rehearing-final.pdf">request for rehearing</a> contended that the following errors related to climate change impacts were present in the supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) and April 2023 order: (1) the determination that the Alaska LNG Project’s exports were consistent with the public interest was arbitrary and capricious and violated the Natural Gas Act because DOE used “alleged uncertainties … to justify discounting the Project’s climate harms” while ignoring the alleged uncertainties in accounting for the Project’s benefits; DOE overstated the degree of uncertainty about adverse impacts to the climate; and DOE could not ignore the Project’s adverse climate impacts even if the Project substituted for foreign fossil fuels; and (2) the SEIS violated NEPA because it did not comply with NEPA regulations regarding missing information; it made unsupported assumptions about byproduct carbon dioxide injection; it did not adequately address impacts from proposed carbon storage; it did not adequately address methane leakage; and the analysis of overseas impacts was inadequate.
Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Energy ↗
20-1503D.C. Cir.8 entries
Filing Date
Type
Action Taken
Document
Summary
04/15/2025
Decision
Petitions for review denied.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied petitions for review challenging the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) approval of an application to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Alaska LNG Project. The court noted that it had previously held that the environmental impact statement (EIS) prepared by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the Project complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). With respect to the only environmental impact not considered in the FERC EIS—downstream emissions—the D.C. Circuit concluded that other precedent and principles of judicial review foreclosed the petitioners’ contention that DOE’s supplemental EIS and final order approving the export application “inflated the uncertainty regarding the Project’s contribution to climate-changing [greenhouse gases] and claimed that uncertainty prevented it from drawing conclusions about the Project’s harms.” The court found that “overwhelming evidence” supported DOE’s finding that impacts of downstream emissions in foreign countries were not reasonably foreseeable. The court found that the failure to quantify such impacts therefore did not violate NEPA, and that the alleged failure to weigh such impacts in the public interest determination under the Natural Gas Act did not overcome the Natural Gas Act’s “presumption … in favor of granting export authorization.” The court also ruled that the petitioners were precluded from raising arguments about the Project’s upstream effects that they made or could have made in their challenges to the FERC EIS.
03/29/2024
Brief
Joint brief filed by intervenors Alaska Gasline Development Corporation and Alaska LNG Project LLC in support of respondent.
–