May 9, 2024

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

The Honorable Pete Buttigieg, Secretary

Admiral Ann C. Phillips, Administrator, Maritime Administration
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590

Dear Mr. President, Secretary Buttigieg, and Admiral Phillips:

The undersigned urge the White House and Department of Transportation (DOT) to halt
and reevaluate its licensing review of proposed deepwater crude oil export facilities to update
and ensure the validity of the agency’s “national interest” determinations and related
Deepwater Port Act (DWPA) project review.1 The licensing of massive deepwater crude oil
exports leads to disastrous climate-disrupting pollution and environmental injustices and would
lock in decades of fossil fuel dependence that undercut the pathway to a clean energy
economy. Tens of thousands of people across the country have weighed in to urge DOT to
reconsider its review of these deepwater ports in light of this Administration’s stated
commitments to combat climate change and environmental injustices. We are calling for the
Biden Administration to heed the calls of frontline communities and young people and take
action.

At minimum, we ask the Administration to update its outdated analysis under the DWPA
and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to address the harms generated by expansive oil

1
Such action is consistent with this Administration’s January 26, 2024 announcement to pause licensing
review of proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, the purpose of which is to “update assessments
used to inform whether additional LNG export authorization … are in the public interest.” “DOE to
update Public Interest Analysis to Enhance National Security, Achieve Clean Energy Goals, and Continue
Support for Global Allies,” Dep’t of Energy (Jan. 26, 2024), available at
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-update-public-interest-analysis-enhance-national-security-
achieve-clean-energy-goals (The Department of Energy (DOE) and Secretary Granholm explain the action
represents a commitment to equitable economic opportunities, strengthening energy security,
protecting Americans against climate change, and achieving a clean energy future. An updated public
interest assessment “must use the most complete, updated, and robust analysis possible on market,
economic, national security, environmental considerations, including current authorized exports
compared to domestic supply, energy security, greenhouse gas emissions including carbon dioxide and
methane, and other factors.”) (hereinafter “DOE Action”).

1
exports on the climate, as well as consequences for environmental justice communities along
the Gulf Coast, and for the national interest in energy sufficiency.

There are at least four deepwater crude oil export facilities under review or recently
authorized by DOT. In late-2022, DOT reached a decision to issue a conditional license for the
Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT); a final license for the facility was issued on April 8, 2024
authorizing the loading and export of up to two-million barrels of domestically-produced crude
each day for thirty years, on tankers the size of the Empire State Building. Despite requiring
compliance with all conditions before issuing the license,2 the final authorization appears to
leave numerous conditions set forth in the Record of Decision unsatisfied, including permitting
and compliance with federal and local laws critical to ensuring the project will not result in
environmental and public health disaster.3 The rush to prematurely issue a final license is
especially troubling given recent reports that demand for this decades-long polluting project
may not even exist.4 Three other similar deepwater crude export projects are proposed in the
Gulf of Mexico ranging in capacity from one- to two-million barrels per day. Each new terminal
represents a significant share of total U.S. oil export volumes and stands to drastically increase
export levels and induce significant oil production and consumption.5

Notably, the recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming DOT’s NEPA and
DWPA review of SPOT explicitly provides that the role of the Court is not to determine whether
the agency made the best decision, or reached the correct conclusions in its review or choice of
economic studies and scientific data, only that it ensure the agency made an informed
decision.6 Given the intensity and destructive nature of the climate crisis and the long-time

2
Record Of Decision on the Deepwater Port License Application of Spot Terminal Services LLC, Dep’t of
Transportation, 94 (Nov. 21, 2022) (hereinafter “SPOT ROD”).
3
License to Own, Construct and Operate a Deepwater Port Issued to SPOT Terminal Services, LLC, U.S.
Dep't of Transportation, Annex A (Apr. 8, 2024). The public record fails to show whether numerous
license conditions, including permit authorization under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and the
Dune Protection Permit required from the Village of Surfside Beach, have been satisfied.
4
“Focus: As shale oil output slows, one deepwater port struggles for customers,” REUTERS (April 22,
2024), available at https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/shale-oil-gains-slow-deepwater-
port-struggles-customers-2024-04-22/; “Texas Deepwater Oil Export Projects Stall,” Oil Price (April 23,
2024), available at https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Texas-Deepwater-Oil-Export-Projects-
Stall.html.
5
Other proposed Gulf Coast deepwater crude oil export facilities with pending applications include:
Bluewater (384-million barrels-per-year capacity, sited approximately 15 miles off San Patricio County,
Texas); Texas GulfLink (360-million barrels-per-year capacity, sited approximately 30 miles off Brazoria
County, Texas); and Blue Marlin (730-million barrels-per-year capacity, sited 99 miles off Cameron
Parish, Louisiana). In 2017, MARAD approved Delfin LNG (657.50 million standard cubic feet per day
peak throughput capacity, sited approximately 40 miles off Cameron Parish, Louisiana), but DOT recently
refused to issue a final license due to significant project design and funding changes on which the
original authorization relied.
6
Citizens for Clean Air & Clean Water in Brazoria Cnty. v. United States Dep't of Transportation, 98 F.4th
178, 190 (5th Cir. Apr. 4, 2024).

2
suffering of frontline communities from fossil fuel industry pollution, to which this
Administration has committed to resolving,7 it is abundantly clear that more is required of the
agency to meet its statutory duty of ensuring licensing decisions are consistent with the
“national interest,” and “environmental quality” and “energy sufficiency” policy goals.8 As
described in detail below, the agency’s most recent deepwater crude export licensing review
incorporates misinformed assumptions about future oil demand and the continued operations
of existing nearshore export terminals; it lacks any explanation of health impacts from project
air pollution emissions in one of the nation’s most severely impaired air quality regions in which
pollution-induced respiratory illness and cancers are pervasive; it overlooks the most recent
science regarding the risk of species level consequences to the critically endangered Rice’s
whale resulting from injury or death of even one whale from vessel noise, strikes or oil spills.
Just as the Administration is strengthening and updating public interest evaluations for LNG
exports,9 it is imperative that DOT take similar action for the national interest determinations of
deepwater oil export facilities.

Our coalition of frontline community groups, environmental organizations, and

thousands of Gulf Coast residents and citizens nationwide have worked tirelessly to disclose to
decision makers the harms posed by these ill-conceived deepwater fossil fuel export projects
that contradict this Administration’s commitment to combat climate change and environmental
injustice in the Gulf South. Moreover, these projects put domestic energy sufficiency at risk by
sending our nation’s future energy supplies abroad. We urgently request that the
Administration pause its ongoing licensing review and certification of pending deepwater fossil
fuel export facilities to ensure that DOT is properly executing its Deepwater Port Act duties,
guaranteeing that the licensing of any such facility is indeed in the “national interest.”

The Deepwater Port Act’s National Interest Review

The Deepwater Port Act prohibits the Department of Transportation from licensing a
deepwater fossil fuel export facility unless it determines the project is in the “national
interest.”10 Similarly, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Natural Gas Act mandate requires a
finding that LNG exports are consistent with the “public interest.”11 But the Deepwater Port Act
commands more; the “national interest” determination and DOT’s ultimate approval must
demonstrate that construction and operation of deepwater ports are “consistent with national
security and other national policy goals and objectives, including energy sufficiency and
environmental quality.”12 The statute and implementing regulations set forth explicit review

7
“Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,”
Exec. Order 13990, 86 Fed. Reg. 7037 (Jan. 25, 2021); “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”
Exec. Order. 14008, 86 Fed. Reg. 7619 (Feb. 1, 2021) (hereafter “Executive Orders”).
8
33 U.S.C. § 1503.
9
DOE Action, supra note 1.
10
33 U.S.C. § 1503.
11
15 U.S.C. § 717b(a).
12
33 U.S.C. § 1503(c)(3).

3
criteria for evaluating deepwater port applications, including effects on the marine
environment, alternative uses of the oceans and navigable waters, danger to deepwater ports
from weather and ocean conditions, effects of connected land-based development, and effects
on human health and welfare.13 The Department must evaluate the proposed facility, both
individually and cumulatively, encompassing the deepwater port’s ocean and connected land-
based infrastructure, as well as the vessel operations serving the deepwater facility.14

Despite unambiguous review mandates, DOT has failed to consistently and rigorously
apply the statutory criteria when approving deepwater ports for the export of fossil fuels. The
recently authorized SPOT project provides a glimpse into DOT’s flawed review which relies on
misinformed assumptions and overlooks relevant scientific data, ultimately threatening the
national interest, including environmental quality and energy sufficiency objectives. These
consequential shortcomings, described below, plainly undermine the DWPA and the
Administration’s declared national interest goals of building a clean energy economy while
mitigating the climate crisis and alleviating destructive industrial pollution centered in the Gulf
of Mexico.15 With the Administration’s recent pause on LNG export approvals to ensure
rigorous, up-to-date public interest review, a similar imperative exists to provide clear guidance
and updated assessments for reviewing deepwater crude export applications.

Accordingly, DOT must correct existing deficiencies in its deepwater export project
evaluations and update information required to analyze factors the Department must consider
in determining whether a project is consistent with the national interest and environmental
quality and energy sufficiency national policy goals. As set forth below, this includes project
effects on climate change; environmental justice; public health and welfare; natural resources
such as air and water quality, marine ecosystems and imperiled species; and domestic energy
supply.

Climate Impacts

Notably, DOT’s national interest and environmental review of applications for

deepwater crude export facilities fails to reckon with the fact that the proposed massive oil
export expansions would generate a climate-wrecking net increase in greenhouse gas pollution
on top of other environmental and public welfare harms. In fact, a single proposed facility could

13
33 U.S.C. § 1505; see U.S.C. § 1504 (i)(3); and see 33 C.F.R. § 148.707 (further defining that national
interest based on environmental considerations, including impacts on endangered species, water, air,
coastal and marine ecosystems, human health and welfare, including socioeconomic impacts,
environmental justice and protection of children from environmental health and safety risks); 33 C.F.R. §
148.710 (emphasizing projects must be in the national interest and consistent with energy sufficiency
and environmental quality goals; and further requiring the use of best available control technology to
minimize adverse effects if such determinations are made).
14
33 C.F.R. § 148.705.
15
Executive Orders, supra note 7.

4
produce emissions equivalent to operating nearly ninety new coal fired power plants.16 To date,
DOT’s review incorrectly assumes deepwater ports would replace or substitute existing
nearshore export operations on a one-to-one basis based on applicant claims that deepwater
facilities would alleviate existing nearshore export bottlenecks.17 But that conclusion is both
unsubstantiated and illogical given the more limited maximum capacity of existing nearshore
operations and the absence of any evidence they would shut down if larger offshore ports
come online. The Department’s assumption is also contradicted by industry executives touting
to investors that nearshore export operations will not remain idle with the addition of massive
deepwater export facilities.18

Further, DOT fails to justify its assumption that project lifecycle greenhouse gas
emissions and associated increased crude production and combustion would occur regardless
of whether the facility comes online.19 In reality, the Department’s review of massive
deepwater oil export facilities evades disclosure of the changes that would occur to upstream
U.S. oil field production levels all together,20 and attempts to make the unsubstantiated case
that construction and operation of unbounded, large-scale U.S. exports will have no effect on
global demand and resulting production.21 DOT illogically claims that global demand for crude

16
Outside experts calculate SPOT’s associated lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions at approximately 367
to 396 million tons of CO2e every year. Letter from Sierra Club et al. to Yvette Fields, Maritime
Administration & William Nabach, U.S. Coast Guard, Re: Comments on SPOT Terminal, LLC, National
Environmental Policy Act Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Docket No. MARAD-2019-0011 (June
1, 2020), 29-31, 42-86 (attached Expert Declaration of Petra Pless),
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/MARAD-2019-0011-1171. Inputting SPOT’s emission levels into
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator provides that
emissions associated with the project would be equivalent to operating as much as 89 coal plants each
year. Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, Environmental Protection Agency,
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gasequivalencies-calculator#results.
SPOT Terminal, LLC, Final Environmental Impact Statement, Docket No. MARAD-2019-0011 (July 2022),
5-55, available at https://www.regulations.gov/document/MARAD-2019-0011-5032 (hereafter “SPOT
FEIS”).
17
SPOT FEIS at 1-10, 2-62-63.
18
The Motley Fool, Tr. from Enterprise Product Partners’ Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call
(June 30, 2021), available at https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/07/28/enterprise-
products-partners-epd-q2-2021-earnings (Brent Secrest, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial
Officer, Enterprise Products: Reassuring investors no conflict exists between the company’s proposed
offshore VLCC terminal and its existing onshore terminals’ oil-export business, “There's still a need for
what we have existing, and then it would be more of an optimization as it relates to the joint venture
partners. But between petchem and NGLs, there's ways to use those docks' crude oil.”); see also “Focus:
As shale oil output slows, one deepwater port struggles for customers,” REUTERS (April 22, 2024),
available at https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/shale-oil-gains-slow-deepwater-port-
struggles-customers-2024-04-22/ (changing flows, uncertainty for shippers, more ships going to Europe
mean less need for supertankers and deepwater ports).
19
SPOT FEIS at 5-53 – 57.
20
SPOT FEIS at 5-57.
21
Id.

5
will remain high, regardless of whether these facilities are built and even in the face of
impending domestic and international climate change policies that mandate stemming fossil
fuel use.22 Such unsupported assertions fail to satisfy statutory and regulatory requirements to
forecast the reasonably foreseeable impacts of projects on the environment.

Indeed, largescale deepwater export facilities of unprecedented size would result in a

net increase in exports that would lead to expanded upstream production and downstream
combustion that would not otherwise occur under existing infrastructure limitations.23 By itself,
SPOT would increase U.S. 2023 crude export levels by half, an amount equivalent to over 15
percent of domestic oil supplies.24 And SPOT is the first of several deepwater oil export facilities
under review by DOT that has been licensed. With a lifespan of thirty years, this infrastructure
buildout along with new long-term export contracts, makes prolonged fossil fuel dependence
unavoidable. In overlooking this reality, DOT never quantifies or analyzes the full scope of
project impacts, including effects on climate and increased risk of oil spills and ozone-causing
air pollution in the already inundated environmental justice community of Freeport. Nor has
the Department properly assessed the cumulative effects of SPOT and other proposed export
operations, such as Texas GulfLink sited just seven miles from SPOT.

Likewise, DOT’s limited review of project emissions and climate effects also ignores the
latest science on climate change and fails to establish metrics for evaluating “social cost of
carbon” and analyzing the project’s impacts compared to international climate commitments
that must be considered in any valid “national interest” determination.25 Specifically, recent

22
SPOT FEIS at 2-63; McKinsey & Co., Global Energy Perspective 2022, Public Exec. Summ. (Apr. 2022), 6,
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Oil%20and%20Gas/Our%20Insights/Global%
20Energy%20Perspective%202022/Global-Energy-Perspective-2022-Executive-Summary.pdf.
23
Earthjustice et al Comments on DEIS for Bluewater Texas Terminal LLC, Exhibit 1 - Report of Peter
Erickson, MARAD-2019-0094-0919, available at https://www.regulations.gov/comment/MARAD-2019-
0094-0919 (finding that the lower-capacity Bluewater Texas terminal could induce increased U.S.
onshore production for export by 330,000 b/d to 1 million b/d, resulting in a net global increase in oil
consumption between 110,000 and 330,000 b/d); Sierra Club et al Comments on SDEIS for SPOT
Terminal, LLC, Docket No. MARAD-2019-0011, 15-17 (Dec. 13, 2021), available at
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/MARAD-2019-0011-5005 (indicating that SPOT could induce
much greater crude production given its capacity is double that of Bluewater).
24
See 2023 Exports, Petroleum & Other Liquids, U.S. Energy Info. Admin. (accessed Mar. 27, 2024),
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_exp_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_a.htm (providing that U.S. crude
oil exports were averaging around 4 million barrels per day in 2023); see 2023 Crude Oil Production,
Petroleum & Other Liquids, U.S. Energy Info. Admin. (accessed Mar. 27, 2024),
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbblpd_a.htm (providing that U.S. crude oil
production was averaging roughly 13 million barrels per day in 2023); SPOT FEIS at 1-11.
25
See Petition To Maritime Administration to Halt The Approval of Deepwater Port Infrastructure
Licenses as Contrary To National Interest (Nov. 10, 2022), 5-8, available at
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_institute/pdfs/Maritime-Administration-
climate-petition-2022-11-10.pdf; see also National Environmental Policy Act Guidance on Consideration
of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change, 88 Fed. Reg. 1196, 1198 (Jan. 9, 2023). (The Council

6
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports identified the
maximum remaining amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted to maintain a chance of
meeting the 1.5°C Paris Agreement climate limit, known as the “carbon budget.”26 These
assessments and tens of thousands of other studies make clear that fossil-fuel driven climate
change is a “code red for humanity,”27 and that every additional ton of CO2 and fraction of a
degree of temperature rise matters. Even half a degree of warming above 1.5°C would cause
catastrophic damage,28 harming every facet of the national interest. To preserve a 67 percent
chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C, the United States must end all oil and gas
production by 2031;29 for a 50 percent chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C, the U.S.
must reduce oil and gas production 74 percent by 2030 and end production by 2034.30
Accordingly, new fossil fuel infrastructure projects, including import and export terminals that
induce further oil and gas production, are inconsistent with meeting a 1.5°C limit.31 Research
shows that the committed carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure in the
energy and industrial sectors exceed a carbon budget that limits warming to 1.5°C, meaning
that no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be built, and much existing infrastructure must be
retired early to avoid catastrophic climate harms.32 In short, there is no emission space within

on Environmental Quality’s 2023 guidance for NEPA review recommends that agencies provide
additional context for GHG emissions through the use of the best available social cost of GHG
estimates); see also Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse
Gases: Estimates Incorporating Recent Scientific Advances,” (Nov. 2023), available at
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/epa_scghg_2023_report_final.pdf; see also
Hasselman, J. & Erickson, P. “NEPA review of fossil fuels projects – principles for applying a “climate
test” for new production and infrastructure” (May 2022) available at https://earthjustice.org/wp-
content/uploads/climate_test_-_hasselman_erickson.pdf.
26
Dan Calverley & Kevin Anderson, Phaseout Pathways for Fossil Fuel Production Within Paris-compliant
Carbon Budgets (2022),
https://research.manchester.ac.uk/files/213256008/Tyndall_Production_Phaseout_Report_final_text_3
_.pdf
27
United Nations Secretary-General, Secretary-General’s statement on the IPCC Working Group 1
Report on the Physical Science Basis of the Sixth Assessment (Aug. 9, 2021),
https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6/wg1/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FullReport.pdf; see also IPCC, 2023: Summary for
Policymakers, Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report (2023) 19-20, available at:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf.
28
Id.; see also Dan Calverley & Kevin Anderson, supra note 26.
29
Id.
30
Id.
31
Dan Tong et al., Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5°C climate
target, 572 Nature 373 (2019), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1364-3; SEI, IISD, ODI,
E3G, and UNEP, The Production Gap: The discrepancy between countries’ planned fossil fuel production
and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C (2020),
https://productiongap.org/2020report/; Alexander Pfeiffer et al., Committed emissions from existing
and planned power plants and asset stranding required to meet the Paris Agreement, 13 Environmental
Research Letters 054019 (2018), https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabc5f/meta.
32
Tong et al., supra note 31.

7
the IPCC’s carbon budget of 1.5°C for any nation to develop new fossil fuel infrastructure and
production facilities of any kind, including thirty-year deepwater export terminals.

Indeed, DOT’s limited review of the climate impacts of large-scaled deepwater crude
export operations to date directly undercuts the Administration’s and Congress’ goals of
combatting the climate crisis and creating a clean energy future.33 Moreover, the Council on
Environmental Quality’s regulations and guidance for NEPA review further demonstrate DOT’s
flawed review of project effects on climate change. Specifically, the guidelines, published in
January 2023, require agencies to quantify “reasonably foreseeable” direct and indirect;
upstream and downstream; and gross, net and cumulative GHG emissions changes, including
increases and reductions, annually and over a project’s lifetime.34 DOT’s assessment of
deepwater export applications to date fail to accurately and rigorously evaluate these effects,
undermining a valid national interest determination in violation of statutory requirement. Such
errors warrant development of updated licensing review guidance.

Environmental Justice and Air Pollution Impacts

To date, DOT has failed to conduct a meaningful environmental justice review of

proposed deepwater crude oil export facilities. It is indisputable that fossil fuel production and
infrastructure disproportionately harm Black, Brown, Indigenous and low-income communities
in many ways and at every phase of the fossil fuel lifecycle. The onshore infrastructure that
supports deepwater ports, such as terminals and pipelines, are very often concentrated in and
directly harm communities that are already overburdened with air and water pollution. They
present disproportionately high health risks and harms, and cause destruction of natural
resources, depression of property values and other negative impacts. Communities in the Gulf
region, where proposed oil and gas export expansion is concentrated, suffer from increased
rates of asthma, respiratory illness and cancer; that is the direct result of decades of federal
authorizations to construct and operate fossil fuel and other industrial facilities in and along the
Gulf of Mexico. Adding thirty more years of polluting oil and gas infrastructure flouts the
Administration’s commitments to reverse this toxic legacy.

In particular, DOT never explains or discloses health harms of these major emitting
facilities, and, in SPOT’s case, it failed to quantify the project’s massive contributions to the
region’s total ozone pollution, including pollution generated by the hundreds of vessels serving
the project each year.35 The Department failed to provide any evaluation of the facility’s full

33
Executive Orders, supra note 7; “FACT SHEET: One Year In, President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is
Driving Historic Climate Action and Investing in America to Create Good Paying Jobs and Reduce Costs,”
The White House (Aug. 16, 2023), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-
releases/2023/08/16/fact-sheet-one-year-in-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act-is-driving-historic-
climate-action-and-investing-in-america-to-create-good-paying-jobs-and-reduce-costs/.
34
“National Environmental Policy Act Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and
Climate Change,” 88 Fed. Reg. 1196 (Jan. 9, 2023).
35
SPOT FEIS at 3-357, 360-361.

8
scope of health impacts and contributions to the region’s existing poor air quality conditions,
which were recently downgraded by EPA to “severe nonattainment” status for ozone in the
broader Houston region where the project would be built.36 Ozone pollution, or smog, causes
respiratory conditions like asthma. Individually and together, these failures result in gross
underestimates of adverse public health and welfare impacts that SPOT and other surrounding
projects would have on local communities already enduring decades of impaired air quality
from pervasive fossil fuel industry pollution.

Impacts to Critically Endangered Rice’s whales

DOT has ignored updated science on threatened and endangered species. In particular,
recent science on the critically endangered Rice’s whale demonstrates that increased risk of
vessel strike, underwater noise, and oil pollution generated by just one of these deepwater
crude export facilities, and cumulatively with other existing and proposed oil and gas
development operations in the region, could lead to the species’ extinction.37 The Rice’s whale,
considered one of the planet’s most endangered marine mammals, numbers fewer than 100
individuals, with a current best estimate of 50 whales that exclusively inhabit Gulf of Mexico
waters directly impacted by oil and gas export operations.38, 39 This Administration recently

36
“Determinations of Attainment by the Attainment Date, Extensions of the Attainment Date, and
Reclassification of Areas Classified as Serious for the 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality
Standards,” 87 Fed. Reg. 60,926 (Oct. 7, 2022).
37
See, e.g., 84 Fed. Reg. 15,446, 446-488 (Apr. 15, 2019) (listing decision, determining that the whale is
at a “high risk of extinction” under three statutory factors); see e.g., NMFS, “Rice’s whale,” available at
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/rices-whale (accessed March 2024); P.E. Rosel, P.J. Corkeron, L.
Engleby, D. Epperson, K. Mullin, M.S. Soldevilla, and B.L. Taylor, Status review of Bryde’s whales
(Balaenoptera edeni) in the Gulf of Mexico under the Endangered Species Act, at iv, 130-32 (2016)
(NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-SEFSC-692); see also Comment from NRDC et al. Re: Proposed critical habitat
designation for Rice’s whale (NOAA-2023-0028), available at:
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/NOAA-NMFS-2023-0028-25145 (Providing a summary of the
recent science on the Rice’s whale and threats to the species, including evidence of the species’
persistent occurrence in central and western Gulf waters and direct threats of vessel strikes, noise and
spills from oil and gas development).
38
M.S. Soldevilla, A.J. Debich, L.P. Garrison, J.A. Hildebrand, and S.M. Wiggins, Rice’s whales in the
northwestern Gulf of Mexico: call variation and occurrence beyond the known core habitat, Endangered
Species Research 48: 155-74 (2022); S.A. Hayes, E. Josephson, K. Maze-Foley, P.E. Rosel, J. McCordic, and
J. Wallace, eds., U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Marine Mammal Stock Assessments 2022, 114-22
(2023) (NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-NE-304). (According to NMFS’ most recent Stock Assessment Report
for the Rice’s whale (2022), the minimum population size for the species is 34. And the data suggests
that approximately one whale can be lost to human impacts every fifteen years.)
39
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster led to the loss of 22 percent of the Rice’s whale population.
NOAA Fisheries, “Rice’s Whale: In the Spotlight,” available at
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/rices-whale/spotlight. Thus, the risk of oil spills from new and
expanded oil export operations including from vessels and hundreds of miles of on and offshore pipeline
and loading infrastructure, pose a significant threat to the species’ long-term survival.

9
proposed critical habitat for the species40 that directly overlaps with proposed oil and gas
export projects as well as the recently authorized SPOT facility, including their ongoing vessel
operations and the path of forecasted oil spills.41 This designation, expected to become final
this year, is substantiated by the Administration’s own recently published science detailing the
highly imperiled status of the species and threats posed by fossil fuel infrastructure.42, 43 The
DWPA’s explicit mandate to evaluate effects on endangered species,44 combined with
Endangered Species Act requirement to prioritize conservation of protected species in all
federal actions,45 demand meaningful consideration of the latest science on the species which,
to date, has been largely ignored.

Energy Sufficiency

To date, DOT’s licensing decisions fail to directly address the effects of large-scale
deepwater exports on “energy sufficiency.”46 Notably, the Deepwater Port Act was initially
enacted to promote the importation of crude oil and natural gas to the United States, not for
authorization of oil and gas exports. It was only after Congress lifted the crude oil export ban in
2015 that the statute was amended to allow for crude oil exports.47 No further statutory or
regulatory amendments were made to further define licensing review in light of this change,
despite the potentially significant implications that exporting oil could have on domestic energy
supply and other statutory criteria. Notably, DOT’s decision to license SPOT fails to explicitly
explain the project’s consistency with national energy sufficiency goals,48 despite the possible
impacts that permitting the export of more than 15 percent of U.S. oil production annually for

40
“Endangered and Threatened Species; Designation of Critical Habitat for the Rice's Whale,” 88 Fed.
Reg. 47,453 (Jul. 24, 2023), available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-07-
24/pdf/2023-15187.pdf.
41
NOAA Map of Proposed Rice’s Whale Critical Habitat, comprised of the 100 – 400 meter isobaths
extending throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico, available at
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/s3/2023-07/Rices-Whale-Proposed-CH-Map-508-Final.pdf.
42
“Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Status of the Gulf of Mexico Bryde's
Whale”, 84 Fed. Reg. 15,446, 15,474-76 (Apr. 15, 2019), available at
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/04/15/2019-06917/endangered-and-threatened-
wildlife-and-plants-endangered-status-of-the-gulf-of-mexico-brydes-whale; NMFS, Endangered Species
Act Rice’s Whale Critical Habitat Report: Proposed Information Basis and Impact Considerations of
Critical Habitat Designation (July 2023), available at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/s3/2023-
07/Critical-Habitat-Report-508-Final.pdf; Endangered and Threatened Species; Designation of Critical
Habitat for the Rice's Whale, supra note 40.
43
See also Rice’s Whales Spotted in the Western Gulf of Mexico, NOAA (Apr. 30, 2024),
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/rices-whales-spotted-western-gulf-mexico (evidence of
recent sightings off Texas’ coastline close to proposed deepwater oil export facilities and vessel traffic
routes).
44
33 C.F.R. § 148.707(b)(1)(i).
45
16 U.S.C. § 1536(a); 50 C.F.R. § 402.01(a).
46
33 U.S.C. § 1503(c).
47
The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-53, Div. O, Title I, § 101.
48
SPOT ROD, supra note 2, at 50-52 (mentioning “energy sufficiency” only when citing statutory text).

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the next thirty years would have on U.S. oil supply. The Department also failed to consider this
factor or conduct any project evaluation49 when, in 2018, it allowed the Louisiana Offshore Oil
Project (LOOP) to reverse its U.S. import operations for oil exports.50 No environmental review,
national interest determination or formal licensing decision exists on public record for this
significant operational change. This severely flawed decision-making precedent has the
potential to pose significant threats to national security, domestic energy supplies and
environmental quality that undermine the national interest. Indeed, a pressing need exists for
clear guidance on implementing the DWPA’s rigorous licensing review standards.

* * * *

The issues described herein and DOT’s failure to meaningfully evaluate project review
criteria in light of clear national interest goals established by the DWPA and this Administration,
render invalid recent export licensing determinations as well as the ongoing review of similar
pending applications. The Department’s failure to satisfactorily evaluate the national interest
and project consistency with national energy sufficiency and environmental quality goals,
including consideration of relevant and timely science and data, must be corrected. These
errors demand a licensing pause and/or new review of deepwater fossil fuel export
applications. DOT must establish clear guidance and updated scientific, economic, and public
welfare standards for project assessment consistent with DWPA rigor and the climate and
justice goals on which this Administration has promised to deliver. Such action is consistent
with this Administration’s pause on LNG export licensing and the criteria the Administration has
outlined for reviewing LNG export applications.

We would welcome the opportunity to meet and discuss these issues of critical national
importance. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Devorah Ancel
Senior Attorney
Sierra Club

49
No evidence of DOT’s project review of LOOP’s import to export reversal exists in the public record.
Approved Applications, Dep’t of Transportation Maritime Administration,
https://www.maritime.dot.gov/ports/deepwater-ports-and-licensing/approved-applications.
50
LOOP was originally authorized in 1977 as a deepwater port to exclusively import oil to the U.S.

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Cc:
Ali Zaidi, National Climate Advisor, White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy
Admiral Linda L. Fagan, Commandant of the United States Coast Guard
Yvette Fields, Director, MARAD Office of Deepwater Port Licensing
Jaime Pinkham, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works
Dr. Earthea Nance, Regional Administrator, EPA Region 6
Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative

On behalf of:

Better Brazoria
Center for Biological Diversity
Center for Oil and Gas Organizing
Chispa Texas - League of Conservation Voters
Climate Conversation Brazoria County
Earthjustice
Earthworks
Fisherman Involved in Sustaining our Heritage
For a Better Bayou
GreenFaith
Habitat Recovery Project
Ingleside on the Bay Coastal Watch Association
Oil Change International
Seeding Sovereignty
Sierra Club
Sunrise New Orleans
Texas Campaign for the Environment
Turtle Island Restoration Network
Vessel Project of Louisiana

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