ELR Citation: 51 ELR 20150
No(s). 20-1045 (D.C. Cir. Aug 3, 2021)

The D.C. Circuit granted in part and dismissed in part petitions to review FERC's decision authorizing construction and operation of three liquefied natural gas export terminals in Texas. Environmental groups, residents, and a nearby city argued that FERC's analyses of the terminals' impacts on climate change and environmental justice communities were deficient under NEPA, and that the Commission failed to justify its determinations of public interest and convenience under §§3 and 7 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA). The court found that to the extent FERC failed to respond to petitioners' argument in their rehearing request that NEPA's implementing regulations required use of the social cost of carbon protocol or some other accepted methodology to assess the impact of the terminals' greenhouse gas emissions, the Commission failed to adequately analyze such impacts. It further found that FERC's failure to adequately explain why it chose to delineate the area potentially affected by the terminals to include only census blocks within two miles of the terminal sites for its environmental justice analyses was arbitrary. The court therefore remanded without vacatur to FERC to provide explanations for its analyses and, because the analyses were deficient, to revisit its determinations of public interest and convenience under the NGA.