The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) reauthorization of two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in Cameron County, Texas, and a pipeline to carry gas to one of the terminals. FERC reauthorized the projects on remand from an <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/vecinos-para-el-bienestar-de-la-comunidad-costera-v-federal-energy-regulatory-commission/">earlier D.C. Circuit decision</a> that found that FERC failed to adequately analyze climate change and environmental justice impacts. In considering FERC’s reauthorization, the D.C. Circuit found that FERC erred by declining to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement to address its “entirely new and significantly expanded environmental justice analysis that reached new conclusions” and by failing to consider a proposed carbon capture and sequestration system for one of the terminals as part of its supplemental environmental review. The D.C. Circuit also found that FERC should have explained why it declined to consider air quality data from an air monitor that was closer to the projects than the monitor from which the project applicant’s analysis drew its data. The D.C. Circuit rejected challenges to FERC’s updated ozone and greenhouse gas analyses. The D.C. Circuit found that FERC had adequately responded to the court’s earlier decision by explaining why a Council on Environmental Quality National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulation did not compel use of the social cost of carbon protocol to assess the significance of greenhouse gas emissions. Because it concluded that FERC had adequately explained why the NEPA regulation did not alter the greenhouse gas analysis, the D.C. Circuit also rejected the petitioners’ related argument that FERC did not explain greenhouse gas emissions’ role in its public interest determinations under the Natural Gas Act. In addition, the court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider arguments that the petitioners did not make before FERC regarding whether other regulations required FERC to somehow evaluate the significance of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Challenge to FERC order granting new authorizations for LNG terminal in Cameron County, Texas on remand from 2021 D.C. Circuit decision.

City of Port Isabel v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

<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 Vacated FERC Reauthorization of Texas LNG Terminals and Gas Pipeline but Rejected Challenges to Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Filed

United States of America

District of Columbia

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

People who are less able to respond to the effects of climate change due to having limited financial or physical assets

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

The release of heat-trapping gases, primarily from human activities such as burning fossil fuels, agriculture and industry.

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

Actions to reduce emissions in energy generation and supply.

Air pollution involves harmful contaminants in the air, affecting both indoor and outdoor environments. It can lead to health issues like respiratory diseases and heart problems, and climate impacts such as global warming. Pollutants can damage plants, trees, habitats, and water bodies like rivers and lakes.

Electricity generation from devices driven by the movement of salt water, differences in saltwater temperatures, or salinity gradients.

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.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

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

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

This sector involves activities to move goods and people, alongside the storage of products.

Activities that provide lodging, food, and entertainment services to guests, including hotels, restaurants, and resorts.

Activities involving the catching, processing, and selling of fish for food, recreation, and industry.

D.C. Circuit Vacated FERC Reauthorization of Texas LNG Terminals and Gas Pipeline but Rejected Challenges to Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Risk

Impacted group

Renewable energy

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance