Atchafalaya Basinkeeper v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

In a split decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction issued by a district court in Louisiana that temporarily halted construction of an oil pipeline through the Atchafalaya Basin. In March, the Fifth Circuit stayed the preliminary injunction. In the majority opinion vacating the injunction, the Fifth Circuit said the district court “misperceived” the applicable regulations and found that the Army Corps of Engineers’ analysis “vindicates its decision that an Environmental Assessment sufficed” to satisfy the Corps’ obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act and Clean Water Act. The plaintiffs’ complaint included allegations that the Corps failed to analyze climate impacts and that floodplain and coastal loss impacts had not been considered as part of the required “public interest” analysis (though these allegations were not at issue in the preliminary injunction rulings).

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a preliminary injunction barring construction work on the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, a crude oil pipeline in Louisiana. The Fifth Circuit said a stay was warranted because the pipeline developer was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that a Louisiana federal district court abused its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit said the district court should have allowed the case to proceed on the merits and sought additional briefing from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the “limited deficiencies” the d03/istrict court identified in the Corps’ analysis, which were related to the effectiveness of wetlands mitigation measures and cumulative impacts. One judge dissented, writing that he would have denied the developer’s emergency motion for a stay.