Court rejects greens’ challenges to natural gas exports

A federal appeals court rejected environmentalists’ challenges to two liquefied natural gas export projects.  The Sierra Club and its allies faulted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) decisions to approve projects in Texas and Louisiana. They said FERC’s environmental reviews failed to account for the impacts of increased natural gas drilling and the cumulative impacts of multiple natural gas export facilities. But the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed, saying FERC’s environmental reviews didn’t have to account for those factors. “The commission’s NEPA analysis did not have to address the indirect effects of the anticipated export of natural gas,” the court wrote regarding the Freeport LNG project in Texas. “That is because the Department of Energy, not the commission, has sole authority to license the export of any natural gas going through the Freeport facilities.”  It used similar reasoning in the case regarding the Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana. The court’s argument stems from the fact that while FERC is responsible for approving the facilities themselves, the Energy Department has the separate task of considering applications to export natural gas. Therefore, any impacts from exports, like increased gas drilling and increased pollution, are the department's responsibility.