United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

____________ FILED April 4, 2024 No. 23-60027 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk Citizens for Clean Air & Clean Water in Brazoria County; Texas Campaign for the Environment; Center for Biological Diversity; Turtle Island Restoration Network; Sierra Club,

Petitioners,

versus United States Department of Transportation; Pete Buttigieg, in his official capacity as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation; United States Coast Guard, an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Richard V. Timme; United States Maritime Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation; Ann Phillips, in her official capacity as Administrator of the U.S. Maritime Administration; Linda L. Fagan, in her official capacity as Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard,

Respondents. ______________________________

Appeal from the Maritime Administration Agency No. MARAD-2019-0011 ______________________________ Before Wiener, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges. Dana M. Douglas, Circuit Judge: A government agency approved a license to construct and operate a large deepwater oil facility a few miles from Texas’s coast. Several Case: 23-60027 Document: 147-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/04/2024

No. 23-60027

environmental organizations allege that the approval was unreasonable, claiming that the reviewing agency failed to support its decision with a well- reasoned environmental impact analysis. Such a failure, the organizations assert, was in violation of the Deepwater Port Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The question presented is whether the agency’s approval was arbitrary or capricious. We hold that the agency adequately considered the environmental consequences of the facility before approving its deepwater port license and, on those grounds, DENY the petition for review. I America’s deepwater oil and gas industry was born in the late 1930s when proprietors discovered oil in the Gulf of Mexico’s open waters. To access the valuable minerals, workers constructed wooden platforms with timber pilings and floating decks meant to wash away in the event of storms. Diane Austin, et al., MMS 2004-049, History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana: Interim Report 72–74 (U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, vol. 1 2004). Little did anyone know then that these primitive wooden structures would lay the foundation for the more than 3,000 deepwater oil facilities in operation today. See Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas: Oil and Gas Structures, Nat’l Oceanic & Atmospheric Admin., https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/gulf-data-atl as/atlas.htm?plate=Offshore%20Structures (last visited Feb. 4, 2023). With such an imposing modern infrastructure, it may come as no surprise that the Gulf leads the nation in producing and exporting domestic oil to markets worldwide. That reality nevertheless presents challenges the builders of the first offshore platforms likely never considered. One challenge, for example, is efficiently exporting the roughly 3.9 million barrels of crude oil that move from the region daily. Petroleum & Other Liquids,

2 Case: 23-60027 Document: 147-1 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/04/2024