Citizens for Clean Air & Clean Water in Brazoria County v. U.S. Department of Transportation

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that federal respondents complied with NEPA and the Deepwater Port Act when they approved a license for construction and operation of the Sea Port Oil Terminal, a deepwater port off the Texas coast that would store and export crude oil. The Fifth Circuit concluded that at least one of environmental groups challenging the approval had standing but found that the respondents’ NEPA review had adequately analyzed issues raised by the groups, including oil spill risks, a worst-case oil spill, impacts on Rice’s whale, air quality impacts, and alternatives. Regarding alternatives, the environmental groups had argued, among other things, that the respondents should have considered a reduced-capacity option that would reduce ozone air pollution, spill risk, and climate pollution. The Fifth Circuit concluded that NEPA did not require consideration of alternatives that did not achieve the applicant’s goals. The court also found that the respondents’ consideration of a no-action alternative—which assumed other ports would export the same volumes of oil in the project’s absence—did not violate NEPA standards. Under the Deepwater Port Act, the Fifth Circuit held that the groups could not bring a claim that the respondents violated statutory deadlines and found that the groups did not establish that the respondents failed to determine whether the project was consistent with the U.S.’s energy sufficiency goals.

Five nonprofit organizations filed a petition for review in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the U.S. Maritime Administration’s record of decision for the licensing of the Sea Port Oil Terminal and the final environmental impact statement for the project, which is a deepwater port for transportation of domestically produced crude oil for export to the global market. The project has onshore components in Brazoria and Harris Counties in Texas and offshore components located 27.2 to 30.8 nautical miles off the coast of Brazoria County. In a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-approval-of-sea-port-oil-terminal-2023-01-19/">press release</a> announcing the lawsuit, the organizations said the project would be the largest offshore export terminal in the U.S. and would facilitate a 50% increase over 2022 total oil exports. They said the environmental review of the project failed to account for the project’s impacts on climate change and also failed to adequately assess oil spill risk, harms to endangered species, and public health harms, including impacts to air quality in local communities.