Sierra Club v. Louisiana Department of Energy & Natural Resources

A Louisiana District Court vacated a Coastal Use Permit issued by the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources Office of Coastal Management (OCM) for Commonwealth LNG, LLC’s construction and operation of a natural gas liquefaction, storage, and export facility in Cameron Parish. The court found that OCM failed to consider the facility’s secondary and cumulative impacts related to climate change. Although OCM argued that consideration of potential effects on global warming and climate change were outside its jurisdictional grant of authority under the legislative directives establishing the Louisiana Coastal Resources Program, the court found that the petitioners sought consideration not of the facility’s global climate change impacts but of “how this facility’s impact on climate change, if any, will exacerbate local impacts within the Coastal Zone of Louisiana.” The court further found that the Program’s statute and guidelines, “augmented by the Louisiana Constitution,” mandated consideration of impacts in combination with the impacts two other nearby LNG facilities, including potential impacts on storm severity or sea level rise. Based on the presence of these three LNG facilities within a few miles of each other, the court distinguished <a href="https://www.climatecasechart.com/collections/healthy-gulf-v-secretary-louisiana-department-of-natural-resources_b63d86">Healthy Gulf v. Secretary, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources</a>, which upheld a failure to consider global impacts of climate change. The court also found that OCM failed to consider environmental justice; the court rejected a claim that OCM failed to adequately address the risks of explosions, leaks, and other accidents.

Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in Louisiana District Court challenging the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources’ Office of Coastal Management’s (OCM’s) issuance of a Coastal Use Permit for a methane gas pipeline. They alleged the pipeline’s “sole purpose is to support the development of a new 770+ acre liquefied methane (‘natural’) gas [(LNG)] … export complex.” The petitioners alleged that OCM did not “assess or weigh the costs of the real and potential adverse environmental impacts” of the pipeline, including its impacts in conjunction with the export terminal. Among the failures they alleged was a failure to consider cumulative climate change-related environmental impacts in the Louisiana coastal zone. The petitioners alleged that OCM had justified this omission based on the proposed export facilities’ impact on greenhouse gas emissions being “beyond the scope of the project review under the coastal use regulations and guidelines.” The petition asserted that OCM’s issuance of the permit was “arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the constitutional and statutory provisions, and made on improper procedure, and its decision must be vacated and remanded for reconsideration.”