Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Energy

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed for lack of standing an environmental organization’s challenge to the U.S. Department of Energy’s removal of a restriction that provided that 129 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a Texas facility could only be exported to countries that have a free-trade agreement with the United States. The environmental organization argued that removal of the restriction would increase actual exports, resulting in harms to its members’ interests. The D.C. Circuit found that “[t]his chain of causation is far from obvious” and further found that the organization failed to offer evidence or argument that removal of the restriction was “substantially likely to cause export volumes to increase.” The court therefore concluded that the organization failed to establish an essential element of standing and dismissed the proceeding.