The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction halting the disbursement of loan funds by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) for the Mozambique Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project. After the initial approval of the loan during the first Trump administration, work on the project halted in 2021 due to violent attacks in the area. In 2025, EXIM approved an amendment to the loan agreement after the project’s operator decided to resume work. Friends of the Earth U.S. and Justiça Ambiental challenged the 2025 approval. The D.C. Circuit agreed with the district court that the plaintiffs did not have organizational standing based either on EXIM’s failure to offer an opportunity to participate in notice and comment concerning the 2025 amendment or on the allegedly increased burden that the project would cause to the plaintiff organizations’ services. The D.C. Circuit also agreed with the district court that the organizations did not have informational standing based on their purported entitlement to EXIM’s economic analyses. Although the D.C. Circuit found that the record supported the organizations’ informational standing based on the alleged failure to provide environmental information, including National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) disclosures, the appellate court found that the organizations did not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their NEPA claim. The D.C. Circuit cited NEPA’s exclusion of “extraterritorial activities or decisions, which means agency activities or decisions with effects located entirely outside of the jurisdiction of the United States.” The court was not persuaded by the organizations’ contention that the Mozambique LNG Project would result in indirect domestic effects, including increased carbon emissions. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2025 opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, the D.C. Circuit found that the organizations did not show the “reasonably close causal relationship” between the Project and the “asserted downstream or attenuated effects in the United States” that would be required in order for NEPA to apply. The D.C. Circuit also found that circumstances had not triggered EXIM’s obligation to disclose environmental information under its Environmental and Social Due Diligence Procedures. 

One judge dissented from the majority’s conclusion that the organizations had informational standing under NEPA; he would have concluded that they could not establish such standing because “they seek information about effects that Congress has expressly excluded from NEPA’s reach.” The dissenting opinion stated that the plaintiffs’ assertion that the project’s estimated 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions would “significantly contribute to climate change” was “precisely the kind of attenuated causal chain that NEPA does not reach” because “[a]ny net effect on emissions turns on inherently unknowable market responses affecting production and consumption, the independent decisions of foreign purchasers, the operations of foreign facilities, the dispersion of emissions through the global atmosphere, and the climate’s response over time.” The dissent further stated that “[a] causal chain dependent on so many intervening variables, independent actors, and uncertain consequences is the paradigmatic remote ripple beyond NEPA’s effects inquiry.”

Challenge to the Export-Import Bank of the United States’ approval of a $4.7 billion loan to subsidize construction of a liquefied natural gas  project in Mozambique.

Friends of the Earth U.S. v. Export-Import Bank of the United States

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

D.C. Circuit Said NEPA Challenge to Export-Import Bank Loan for Mozambique LNG Project Was Unlikely to Succeed

Filed

The Climate Litigation Database

Find climate change litigation data and indicators for {text}.

{text} litigation

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law provides Climate Litigation Database, a comprehensive database of US and Global climate change caselaw

Quickly and easily search through the complete text of thousands of climate change law and policy documents from every country.

Search the Climate Litigation Database

An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

A loan is a policy instrument where funds are provided to a borrower with the expectation of repaying the principal plus interest.

Financial support to help individuals manage the effects of unexpected events, securing their livelihoods and increasing the resilience of people and businesses to the changing climate. It’s especially vital in developing regions where everyday risks, climate-related weather extremes, or crop failures can push people into poverty. Without insurance, people may have to resort to selling assets or cutting consumption to cope with losses.

The processes through which enterprises can identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their actual and potential adverse impacts. Due diligence is the idea that reasonable precautions should be taken to avoid causing harm to people, the environment, or society. It also involves identifying and mitigating risks before they occur.

An agency providing government-backed financing, guarantees, and insurance to support domestic companies' international exports, that can play a role in financing climate-related projects.

A company that is owned wholly or partially by the state, typically operating in key sectors.

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

A long-lived, colourless gas, chiefly emitted from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and cement production.

Actions to reduce emissions in energy generation and supply.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from carbonised plant matter, rich in carbon and hydrocarbons, and occurring in several main types including hard coal and brown coal.

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

Activities of government agencies and institutions that provide public services, enforce laws and manage public resources.

Activities of businesses and institutions that provide financial services and products to individuals and organisations.

Climate change impacts our society by disrupting the natural, economic and social systems we depend on. Physical hazards and underlying vulnerabilities can lead to increased resource competition for food and water, which can heighten the risk of conflict.

D.C. Circuit Said NEPA Challenge to Export-Import Bank Loan for Mozambique LNG Project Was Unlikely to Succeed

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance