The Fifth Circuit denied a petition for review brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Habitat Recovery Project challenging the Maritime Administration’s (MARAD’s) approval of a deepwater port license for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in the “Gulf of America,” finding that petitioners lacked Article III standing. MARAD, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, approved Delfin LNG’s project to build a deepwater port in 2017 following an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). After Delfin modified the project’s financing, ownership, and design, MARAD in 2024 determined that the original approval no longer supported the modified project and asked Delfin to submit an amended application. Delfin did not do so. In 2025, following a presidential executive order directing MARAD to determine within 30 days whether the modifications presented “seriously different [environmental] consequences,” MARAD concluded the changes reduced the project’s environmental effects and issued the license without further environmental review in March 2025. Petitioners argued that MARAD’s approval violated the Deepwater Port Act, NEPA, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by forgoing a supplemental environmental review, amended application, and public comment period. The Fifth Circuit, however, ruled that none of the individual members whose statements the petitioners relied on had shown they would suffer a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the licensing decision. These individuals described harms to their fishing, hunting, health, recreation, and research activities, but did not show that those harms were caused by this particular project rather than by industrial activity in the region more broadly. They also failed to show they lived or worked close enough to the project site to be affected by it. Because petitioners failed to establish standing, the court did not reach the merits of their statutory claims and denied the petition for review.

Challenge to the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration’s issuance of a license for the Delfin LNG LLC deepwater port terminal off the coast of Louisiana for exports of liquefied natural gas.

Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Department of Transportation

<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>

Fifth Circuit Rejected Environmental Groups’ Standing to Challenge LNG Deepwater Port License

Filed

United States of America

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

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

Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

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.

Social inclusion is the process of improving the terms on which individuals and groups take part in society—improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity.

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.

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.

This sector creates and distributes information and entertainment through television, radio, print, and digital platforms.

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

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

Climate change can have a range of impacts on technological system. Extreme weather events can cause infrastructure failures like power outages or damage to roads and bridges, as well as the impacts from waste following natural disasters. Human activities also cause technological impacts, such as the risks posed by oil spillage and leaks.

Slow onset events evolve gradually from incremental changes over many years or from increased frequency or intensity of recurring events. As defined in the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), slow onset events include risks and impacts from rising temperatures, desertification, biodiversity loss, land and forest degradation, glacial retreat, ocean acidification, sea level rise, and salinization.

Fifth Circuit Rejected Environmental Groups’ Standing to Challenge LNG Deepwater Port License

Risk

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance