The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied the City of Port Isabel's request for the regulator to stop Rio Grande LNG’s construction while lawsuits against the project are pending.
FERC issued the denial on Wednesday after Port Isabel, Sierra Club, the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and Vecinos para el Bienestar de la Comunidad Costera, a group of Port Isabel residents, filed the stay on Nov. 24.
The lawsuits, filed by the same groups, challenged FERC’s approval of the Rio Grande LNG project after a federal court found the agency did not adequately measure the liquefied natural gas plant’s environmental impacts. In the denial order, FERC said the groups did not prove there were enough harms to issue the stay, instead saying that stopping the construction would be harmful itself.
“Given the harm that could be caused by staying the approved facilities, including the delay to exports of LNG, we do not believe that the harms alleged by Sierra Club, even if irreparable, support a conclusion that stay is in the public interest,” the denial read, referring to the groups wholly as “Sierra Club.”
FERC Commissioner Allison Clements, the lone dissenting voice in the denial order, said the agency is applying a “double standard” when it comes to the groups having to prove harm and Rio Grande LNG proving its in the public interest.
“The Commission easily could have issued data requests to Rio Grande [LNG] and Rio Bravo [Pipeline] to determine and substantiate the harms a stay could cause the companies and their customers, and what specific public benefits would be affected by a stay,” Clements wrote. “Instead, as explained below, the Order relies on pure conjecture for its findings that the project sponsors, their customers, and the public will be harmed by a stay. It seems that the Commission demands hard evidence from [Sierra Club] while crediting bare allegations from the project developers.”
Clements said that the groups have proven that harms would occur by Rio Grande LNG, pointing to a declaration by Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas Chair Juan Mancias, which was included in the stay request.
The tribe’s ancestral lands, the Garcia Pasture, are inside Rio Grande LNG’s property boundaries. Mancias said a spiritual center the tribe is developing would be disrupted by the Rio Bravo Pipeline, which is meant to supply gas to Rio Grande LNG.
“That land is within approximately 0.5 miles of the Rio Bravo Pipeline system route,” Mancias wrote. “Based on my understanding of the location of the Rio Bravo pipeline system construction footprint and the location of access roads to the land, construction of the Rio Bravo pipeline will seriously limit my, and other tribal members’ access to the land.”
Mancias also mentioned his breathing issues and use of supplemental oxygen and how the pollution and particulate matter emitted from the plant's construction and operation would harm his health.
NextDecade, the Houston-based parent company of Rio Grande LNG, started clearing land for the project last year. In July 2023, after getting financing for Rio Grande LNG through a mix of loans, NextDecade cleared more land, leaving a site of bare, flattened earth that’s bigger than New York City’s Central Park.
The company is currently constructing a levee to protect the site, which is in the Bahia Grande wetlands, from flooding during rainstorms. NextDecade is also creating a dock on the ship channel to receive equipment and supplies too heavy or cumbersome to move on State Highway 48, which is the road connecting Port Isabel and Brownsville and runs along the property boundary.
Despite all the land clearing, Rio Grande LNG is still not totally approved for constructing the facilities that will liquify the gas at its site.
NextDecade appears to not yet revise a FERC-required emergency response plan and cost sharing plan to the agency's approval, which outlines, among other things, how an emergency at the site would be handled and the cost of equipment and personnel on site. Documents with updates about the plans are inaccessible on FERC's filling system by request of NextDecade.
NextDecade did not respond to TPR's request for comment on whether the plans were completed.
The denial order came just after news broke that the Biden administration is considering pausing approval of the largest gas terminal project in the U.S. The Department of Energy will now analyze the climate impacts of the Louisiana-based Calcasieu Pass 2 project and determine whether it is in the public interest, which could have implications for all LNG projects in the country.
A spokesperson for the Sierra Club said the organization is disappointed with FERC's decision and that it is exploring options for its next steps.
