Notice of Intent To Prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Rio Grande LNG, LLC and Rio Bravo Pipeline Company, LLC Rio Grande LNG Terminal and Rio Bravo Pipeline Project, Request for Comments on Environmental Issues, and Schedule for Environmental Review

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <SUBAGY>Federal Energy Regulatory Commission</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket Nos. CP16-454-000; CP16-455-000; CP20-481-000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Notice of Intent To Prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Rio Grande LNG, LLC and Rio Bravo Pipeline Company, LLC Rio Grande LNG Terminal and Rio Bravo Pipeline Project, Request for Comments on Environmental Issues, and Schedule for Environmental Review</SUBJECT> The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) will prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (supplemental EIS) that will discuss the environmental impacts of the Rio Grande LNG and Rio Bravo Pipeline Projects involving construction and operation of facilities by Rio Grande LNG, LLC and Rio Bravo Pipeline Company, LLC. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On August 6, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an opinion vacating and remanding the Commission's November 22, 2019 <E T="03">Order Granting Authorizations Under Sections 3 and 7 of the Natural Gas Act</E> and its April 23, 2023 <E T="03">Order on Remand and Amending Section 7 Certificate</E> that approved the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and pipeline project, including a pipeline amendment in FERC Docket No. CP20-481-000. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On remand, the Commission will consider whether to grant a Natural Gas Act (NGA) section 3(a) authorization for the Rio Grande LNG Terminal and an NGA section 7(c) certificate of public convenience and necessity for the Rio Bravo Pipeline Project. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The schedule for preparation of the supplemental EIS is discussed in the <E T="03">Schedule for Environmental Review</E> section of this notice. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  In accordance with the Council on Environmental Quality's regulations, the unique identification number for documents relating to this environmental review is SEIS-019-20-000-1726224918. 40 CFR 1502.4(e)(10) (2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">City of Port Isabel</E> v. <E T="03">FERC,</E> 111 F.4th 1198 (D.C. Cir. 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The Commission approved four discrete route adjustments to the Rio Bravo Pipeline Project in FERC Docket No. CP23-519-000 ( <E T="03">Order Amending Certificate</E> issued May 23, 2024). The supplemental EIS will analyze the pipeline as amended by these route adjustments. </FTNT> The Commission must determine whether to authorize the projects under the NGA, taking into consideration the factors discussed in the court's decision. The supplemental EIS will tier off Commission staff's analysis and conclusions as documented in staff's April 26, 2019 final EIS for the projects. The focus of the supplemental EIS will be the issues identified by the court as requiring further analyses ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> environmental justice impacts, air quality, and alternatives). The Commission will use this supplemental EIS in its decision-making process to determine whether to authorize the Rio Grande LNG and Rio Bravo Pipeline Projects in light of the court's vacatur and remand. As part of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process, the Commission takes into account concerns the public may have about proposals and the environmental impacts that could result from its action whenever it considers the issuance of an authorization. This notice announces the opening of the scoping process the Commission will use to gather input from the public and interested agencies regarding the issues that will be analyzed in the supplemental EIS. Additional information about the Commission's NEPA process is described below in the <E T="03">NEPA Process and the Supplemental EIS</E> section of this notice. By this notice, the Commission requests public comments on the scope of issues to address in the supplemental EIS. To ensure that your comments are timely and properly recorded, please submit your comments so that the Commission receives them in Washington, DC on or before 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on October 15, 2024. Comments may be submitted in written form. Further details on how to submit comments are provided in the <E T="03">Public Participation</E> section of this notice. If you are a landowner receiving this notice, a pipeline company representative may contact you about the acquisition of an easement to construct, operate, and maintain the proposed facilities. The company would seek to negotiate a mutually acceptable easement agreement. You are not required to enter into an agreement. However, if the Commission approves the project, section 7 of the NGA conveys the right of eminent domain to the company. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> Therefore, if you and the company do not reach an easement agreement, the pipeline company could initiate condemnation proceedings in court. In such instances, compensation would be determined by a judge in accordance with state law. The Commission does not grant, exercise, or oversee the exercise of eminent domain authority. The courts have exclusive authority to handle eminent domain cases; the Commission has no jurisdiction over these matters. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Eminent domain does not apply to the NGA section 3 facilities. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Participation</HD> There are three methods you can use to submit your comments to the Commission. The Commission encourages electronic filing of comments and has staff available to assist you at (866) 208-3676 or <E T="03">FercOnlineSupport@ferc.gov.</E> Please carefully follow these instructions so that your comments are properly recorded. (1) You can file your comments electronically using the eComment feature, which is located on the Commission's website ( <E T="03">www.ferc.gov</E> ) under the link to FERC Online. Using eComment is an easy method for submitting brief, text-only comments on a project; (2) You can file your comments electronically by using the eFiling feature, which is also located on the Commission's website ( <E T="03">www.ferc.gov</E> ) under the link to FERC Online. With eFiling, you can provide comments in a variety of formats by attaching them as a file with your submission. New eFiling users must first create an account by clicking on “eRegister.” You will be asked to select the type of filing you are making; a comment on a particular project is considered a “Comment on a Filing”; or (3) You can file a paper copy of your comments by mailing them to the Commission. Be sure to reference the project docket numbers (CP16-454-000; CP16-455-000; and/or CP20-481-000) on your letter. Submissions sent via the U.S. Postal Service must be addressed to: Debbie-Anne A. Reese, Acting Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street NE, Room 1A, Washington, DC 20426. Submissions sent via any other carrier must be addressed to: Debbie-Anne A. Reese, Acting Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville, MD 20852. Additionally, the Commission offers a free service called eSubscription. This service provides automatic notification of filings made to subscribed dockets, document summaries, and direct links to the documents. Go to <E T="03">https://www.ferc.gov/ferc-online/overview</E> to register for eSubscription. The Commission's Office of Public Participation (OPP) supports meaningful public engagement and participation in Commission proceedings. OPP can help members of the public, including landowners, environmental justice communities, Tribal members and others, access publicly available information and navigate Commission processes. For public inquiries and assistance with making filings such as interventions, comments, or requests for rehearing, the public is encouraged to contact OPP at (202) 502-6595 or <E T="03">OPP@ferc.gov</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of the Proposed Projects</HD> Rio Grande LNG, LLC's stated purpose for the Rio Grande LNG Terminal is to develop, own, operate, and maintain an LNG export facility in south Texas to export 27 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG that provides an additional source of firm, long-term, and competitively priced LNG to the global market. Rio Bravo Pipeline Company, LLC's stated purpose for the Rio Bravo Pipeline Project is to develop, own, operate, and maintain a natural gas pipeline system to access natural gas from the Agua Dulce Hub for delivery at the Rio Grande LNG Terminal. The Rio Grande LNG Terminal would consist of five natural gas liquefaction trains, each with a nominal capacity of 5.4 MTPA; four LNG storage tanks; two LNG carrier loading berths; one 1,500-foot-diameter turning basin; LNG truck loading and unloading facilities with four loading bays; two natural gas liquids truck loading bays; and other administrative, maintenance, and support facilities. As amended, the Rio Bravo Pipeline Project would include: a 2.4-mile-long header system; approximately 136 miles of parallel 48- and 42-inch-diameter mainline pipelines; one compressor station; four metering sites; and other appurtenant facilities. The general location of the project facilities is shown in appendix 1. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The appendices referenced in this notice will not appear in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Copies of the appendices were sent to all those receiving this notice in the mail and are available at <E T="03">www.ferc.gov</E> using the link called “eLibrary.” For instructions on connecting to eLibrary, refer to the last page of this notice. For assistance, contact FERC at <E T="03">FERCOnlineSupport@ferc.gov</E> or call toll free, (886) 208-3676 or TTY (202) 502-8659. </FTNT> Based on the environmental analysis in the April 26, 2019 final EIS, construction and installation of facilities for the projects would require temporary disturbance of about 3,633.2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━