Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Department of Energy

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 press release 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’ request for rehearing 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.