Background
Citizens for Clean Air & Clean Water in Brazoria County, which the court called Better Brazoria, petitioned for review of the Maritime Administration’s 2025 approval of Texas GulfLink LLC’s proposed deepwater port off the Texas coast. The project’s offshore pipeline would cross the planned pipeline of the previously approved Sea Port Oil Terminal, or SPOT.
When MARAD published Texas GulfLink’s application, it defined the application area as a circle around the proposed platform and excluded the pipeline route. That differed from MARAD’s original notices for SPOT and another project, which included corridors around their proposed pipelines. MARAD’s Texas GulfLink notice stated that the agency had reconsidered its interpretation and intended to adjust the other projects’ application areas retroactively. Better Brazoria argued that excluding Texas GulfLink’s pipeline violated the Deepwater Port Act and allowed two deepwater ports within the same application area.
The Fifth Circuit first confirmed Better Brazoria’s associational standing. A member who lived near Texas GulfLink’s proposed tank farm and pipeline identified concrete concerns involving flooding, well-water pollution, noise, light, traffic, aesthetics, and property value; vacating the approval would redress those threatened injuries.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit held that the Deepwater Port Act requires an application area to encompass the entire proposed deepwater port site, including pipelines located seaward of the high-water mark. Section 1504(d)(1) establishes the minimum: the area must encompass the port site. Section 1504(d)(2) establishes the maximum and leaves MARAD discretion to choose a reasonable area within those limits. Because the Act expressly defines a deepwater port to include its offshore pipelines, MARAD could not omit Texas GulfLink’s pipeline from the application area.
The court rejected the government’s arguments that MARAD had unfettered discretion to select any area below the statutory maximum and that “deepwater port site” excluded pipelines. Reading the provisions together, the court concluded that including pipelines gives effect to the statutory definition and harmonizes the Act’s application-area requirements.
Properly drawn, Texas GulfLink’s application area would intersect SPOT’s pipeline, contrary to the Act’s requirement that only one deepwater port be approved per application area. The court granted the petition, vacated MARAD’s record of decision, and remanded. It declined remand without vacatur because the improper designation was a serious defect affecting a fundamental part of the licensing process and MARAD could not substantiate the existing approval on remand.
Key Takeaways
- A Deepwater Port Act application area must include the proposed port’s offshore pipelines, not merely the loading platform and surrounding circle.
- MARAD retains discretion to define a reasonable application area, but the area must at least encompass the full deepwater port site and remain within the statute’s maximum boundary.
- When a properly designated area overlaps another deepwater port’s pipeline, MARAD may not approve both projects as though they occupy separate application areas.
Why It Matters
The decision limits MARAD’s discretion at the outset of deepwater-port licensing. Offshore pipelines are part of the regulated port for purposes of defining the application area, which may force competing projects into the Act’s comparative process for selecting the proposal that clearly best serves the national interest.
The opinion also applies the post-Loper Bright framework: courts independently determine the best reading of an agency’s governing statute without deferring to the agency’s interpretation. A licensing decision based on an application area that violates that reading is subject to vacatur, particularly when the defect shaped the process from an early stage.