Friends of the Earth, Justiça Ambiental, and individual plaintiffs who live, farm, and fish near a liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique filed a new lawsuit challenging the March 2025 approval by the board of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) of a $4.7 billion loan to subsidize the project’s construction. On the same day, the plaintiffs filed a proposed amended and supplemental complaint in a <a href="https://www.climatecasechart.com/collections/friends-of-the-earth-u-s-v-export-import-bank-of-the-united-states_09f0">lawsuit</a> filed in 2025. The two complaints were intended to cure standing issues after the D.C. Circuit concluded the organizational plaintiffs lacked standing. The complaints asserted identical claims that EXIM violated the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 and the Administrative Procedure Act, including by failing to evaluate the project’s climate-related risks and impacts. The individual plaintiffs also asserted new claims of negligence, conversion, trespass, public nuisance, private nuisance, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and unjust enrichment against the defendant-intervenor TotalEnergies EP Mozambique Area 1, Limitada (Total), the TotalEnergies SE subsidiary operating the project. Total voluntarily intervened in the 2025 lawsuit. The new complaints did not assert a NEPA claim; the D.C. Circuit had found that the organizations were unlikely to succeed on the merits of such a claim.

Challenge to March 2025 final approval of $4.7 billion Export-Import Bank loan to subsidize construction of liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique.

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

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New Complaint Filed Challenging Export-Import Bank Loan for Mozambique LNG Project; Individual Plaintiffs Asserted Claims Against Project Operator

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

A subsidy is a direct or indirect payment to individuals or businesses, typically provided as a government cash payment or a specific tax reduction.

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Zoning and spatial planning are both methods for guiding the distribution of people and activities in a space, and are regulatory restriction.

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.

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

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woman and genders outside of the gender binary

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Activities of industries that extract natural resources, such as mining, oil, and gas, for commercial use.

The activities of industries involved in the production, distribution, and sale of energy, including electricity, gas, and renewables.

This sector involves managing waste treatment, sanitation, pollution control and environmental cleanup.

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

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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.

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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.

New Complaint Filed Challenging Export-Import Bank Loan for Mozambique LNG Project; Individual Plaintiffs Asserted Claims Against Project Operator

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Renewable energy

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance