The developers of a sprawling LNG export plant on the Texas coast, challenged in court by local and environmental groups for more than a decade, received final approval from federal regulators and can begin construction on two new production units. [some emphasis, links added]
Potential legal challenges remain.
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted March 12 to authorize NextDecade Corp. to begin construction on the fourth and fifth production units at the company’s 984-acre tract near the Gulf of America along the Brownsville Ship Channel.
There is potential to increase the export facility’s annual output from 17.6 million tons to 27 million tons.
Houston-based NextDecade is now building the first three production units, also called “trains,” and expects to begin operating the first two of them in 2027 and the third in 2028.
“The authorization to proceed with Trains 4 and 5 is a critical milestone that reaffirms our commitment to providing global markets with reliable, Texas-produced energy,” said NextDecade Chairman and CEO Matt Schatzman. “We are focused on continuing construction safely and on schedule to meet the growing demand for less carbon-intensive LNG.”
In the last six years, the permits needed to build the fourth and fifth trains were granted, challenged in court, revoked, and then reinstated.
NextDecade first submitted a formal application to FERC in May 2016, and the project was initially approved in 2019.
In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the federal regulator’s original environmental analyses were “deficient” and ordered a new study.
In August 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cancelled Rio Grande’s construction permits entirely, which had never before happened to an LNG project.
The appeals court ordered federal regulators to conduct a new environmental assessment due to procedural deficiencies and a failure to properly assess the project’s impact on marginalized communities near the export facility.
In August 2025, federal regulators concluded in the final assessment that while the Rio Grande LNG project would have “disproportionate and adverse” impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns, the overall effects would be “less than significant.”
Supporters of the Rio Grande project include Texas Republican U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, along with local leaders like Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., a Democrat.
Cruz said after the ruling that the court was correct in restoring the permits.
The senator said the court’s earlier decision to rescind the permits had “jeopardized 7,000 high-paying jobs and $24 billion in investment in the Rio Grande Valley, set a dangerous precedent for energy infrastructure development and investment nationwide, and needed to be revisited.”
Since 2019, legal challenges to the project have been filed by a coalition that includes the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, which aims to protect ancestral lands in the Rio Grande Valley; the Port of Isabel, a town of about 5,000 people located approximately 3 miles east of the construction site; and the Sierra Club.
Top: Construction resumes on two new ‘trains’ at the Rio Grande LNG export terminal. Image via NextDecade/YouTube screencap
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