Sierra Club v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
867 F.3d 1357 (2017)
FERC (defendant) approved a natural-gas pipeline through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida after preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) acknowledging that 83.7% of the pipeline would pass through low-income or minority 'environmental-justice' communities, and explaining that alternative routes would affect such communities similarly; the EIS did not quantitatively estimate the pipeline's downstream greenhouse-gas emissions. Sierra Club and other groups (plaintiffs) challenged FERC's approval, arguing inadequate consideration of both the environmental-justice impact and the greenhouse-gas emissions.
Whether, in reviewing an action pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must take a hard look at the action's effect on low-income and predominantly minority communities.