Environmental groups lack standing to challenge first offshore LNG terminal

A Fifth Circuit panel rejected a challenge by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and Habitat Recovery Project to MARAD's March 2025 license for Delfin LNG, the first floating offshore LNG export terminal licensed in the U.S., located 40 miles off Cameron Parish. Judge Don Willett wrote that none of the groups' five member declarations showed a concrete, project-specific injury, so the court never reached the environmental merits.

The groups had argued MARAD skipped required review after significant financing changes to the project, despite a 2024 MARAD letter flagging those changes as significant; the agency later concluded they reduced impacts and issued the license. The strongest witness, a commercial fisherman, said industrialization made fishing harder but never tied that to Delfin's specific waters.

MARAD Administrator Stephen Carmel called the license the culmination of nearly a decade's work following a $5 billion investment decision, with exports projected to begin in 2030 at 1.8 billion cubic feet per day.

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