Sierra Club v. Wright

Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (NRDC) filed a petition for review in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) order granting long-term authorization for export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to non-free trade agreement nations from the Ventura Global CP2, LLC LNG project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, and also challenging DOE’s NEPA categorical exclusion for “Export of natural gas and associated transportation by marine vessel.” The petitioners challenged the categorical exclusion as it was applied in the export authorization and also on its face. In their motions to intervene and protest before DOE, both Sierra Club and NRDC argued, among other things, that the proposed exports would cause environmental harm, including greenhouse gas emissions, across the entire LNG lifecycle, which both NEPA and the Natural Gas Act required DOE to consider.