Court Orders FERC to Review Approval for NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG Project

NextDecade Corporation announced on March 18 that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revised its August 2024 ruling, which vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of the Rio Grande LNG project in Texas. The ruling remands the order for commission review without vacatur. The company now expects to continue working with FERC through the reauthorization process for the first five liquefaction trains at the Facility.

In 2023, FERC reinstated authorizations for the Rio Grande and Texas LNG amidst widespread criticism from environmental groups and local cities such as the City of Port Isabel about the social and environmental damage from the projects. The U.S. Court of Appeals then issued a decision on Aug. 6 2024, which invalidated the commission’s reauthorizations for the two projects. In December 2024, the commission defended its original decision to reapprove the projects and urged the court to reconsider its decision to nullify the approvals.

After President Trump’s executive orders to remove restrictions on domestic LNG production, U.S. regulators have reversed rulings that delayed or halted several LNG projects. Earlier this year, FERC reinstated its approval for the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line in New Jersey. The commission initially approved the $950 million pipeline expansion project in January 2023, which was later vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

NextDecade’s Rio Grande project would be one of the first LNG projects to use carbon capture and storage technology to reduce carbon emissions by over 90 percent, or 5 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year. Once fully operational, the LNG site aims to deliver energy to 34 million households, with the first phase of the project having an annual production capacity of over 17.6 million tonnes of liquid gas.