⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

A Texas city and environmental groups challenge renewed federal approval of the Rio Grande liquefied natural gas terminal and its supply pipeline in South Texas. The developer had proposed adding carbon capture and sequestration: collecting carbon dioxide from the terminal and storing it underground. The proposal referred to storage sites close to the terminal. In an earlier appeal, the court required the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to examine that proposal even if the developer withdrew its application. The developer did withdraw it, and FERC reaffirmed approval after a supplemental environmental review. FERC declined to recommend carbon capture, citing uncertainties over permitting, timing, cost, and infrastructure. The challengers will argue that evaluating a storage site about a hundred miles away did not answer whether the nearby option was workable. FERC and the project companies will defend that investigation and the agency's discretion to decide which alternatives are feasible. You will hear NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires environmental review rather than a particular environmental outcome. Another dispute concerns a sixth liquefaction train, meaning a gas-processing production line, not a railroad train. The challengers say its effects should have been evaluated with the approved project. FERC says there was no pending expansion proposal at the relevant time. This raises segmentation: whether treating parts of a larger undertaking separately improperly obscures its environmental effects. The judges will examine how the agency's discretion fits with their earlier remand, or instructions sending the matter back to FERC.

South Texas Environmental Justice Network v. FERC (No. 25-1284) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, argued November 2, 2026.