San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper v. Connor

On December 13, 2022, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers notified the federal district court for the District of Columbia of its withdrawal of the record of decision for the Matagorda Ship Channel Improvement Project Feasibility Report and Environmental Impact Statement. Five environmental groups had challenged the Corps’ authorizations for the channel deepening and expansion project that was the subject of the record of decision, including for failing to disclose the climate impacts of a major new crude export site facilitated by the project. The Corps announced on December 5 that it would prepare a supplemental EIS due to a discrepancy between the quantity of dredged material evaluated in a 2019 EIS for the project and the quantity calculated more recently during the pre-construction, engineering, and design phase.

Five environmental groups filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia alleging that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizations for a federal channel deepening and expansion project in the Matagorda Ship Channel near Port Lavaca, Texas, violated NEPA and the Clean Water Act. The allegations included that the Corps was required to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) to consider, among other things, the potential greenhouse gas emissions and national climate policy implications of a major new crude export site that was announced after issuance of the final EIS and which would be facilitated by the channel expansion project. The plaintiffs also alleged that the final EIS’s cost-benefit analysis did not consider certain categories of costs, including climate impacts.