Fifth Circuit vacates Texas GulfLink approval

By Taylor Walton

The Facts

August 14, 2026

A federal appeals court has vacated approval of the proposed Texas GulfLink deepwater port, finding federal officials did not properly follow the Deepwater Port Act.

The ruling Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit grants a petition brought by Citizens for Clean Air & Clean Water in Brazoria County, also known as Better Brazoria. The nonprofit and other environmental groups argued the approval violated restrictions on how many projects can be in the same geographic area, and the three-judge panel agreed.

The decision sends the matter back to the federal Maritime Administration, or MARAD, for further proceedings.

"We do not have a comment at this time," Sentinel Midstream Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Bruce Heine said.

County residents opposed to the GulfLink project heralded the ruling.

"This is a win for local residents of Jones Creek and Freeport who have been fighting for fair and transparent development in their communities," said Riley Bennington, lifelong Brazoria County resident and lead organizer at Texas Campaign for the Environment. "Despite being told that GulfLink was a done deal, residents and community groups organized and exposed the rubber stamp process used to force this risky project on a community who doesn't want it."

The proceedings will require more than making a minor correction to GulfLink's existing approval, according to the ruling — the federal approval itself has been set aside.

At the center of the case was how the federal agency defined the area in which GulfLink would build and operate.

Under the Deepwater Port Act, the Fifth Circuit said, an application area must encompass the entire proposed deepwater port site. The court determined that definition includes offshore pipelines associated with the port.

Texas GulfLink's application did not include the project's proposed pipeline route between the terminal and shore, the court found. That omission is significant because GulfLink's planned pipeline would intersect with one for the nearby Sea Port Oil Terminal, or SPOT, which also received federal approval.

The Deepwater Port Act mandates only one deepwater port be approved within an application area. The intersection pipelines made MARAD's approval of GulfLink unlawful because it relied on an improperly designated application area.

The immediate effect is that GulfLink no longer has the federal Record of Decision that approved its deepwater port application.

The error occurred early in the licensing process and affected a fundamental part of the process, the court said. Because of that, it determined vacating the approval was the appropriate remedy.

The ruling does not itself select SPOT over GulfLink, nor does it order that GulfLink cannot ever be built, the court said, only that the licensing process comply with the Deepwater Port Act.

The dispute dates back to 2019, when MARAD received applications for three proposed deepwater ports off the Freeport coast: SPOT, Texas Crude Offshore Loading Terminal, otherwise known as Texas COLT, and Texas GulfLink.

Texas COLT later withdrew its application, leaving SPOT and GulfLink for federal review. MARAD approved SPOT in 2022 and approved GulfLink's application in February 2025.

When MARAD initially established the application areas for SPOT and Texas COLT, those areas included portions of their proposed pipeline routes. GulfLink's application area was different, the court said.

Federal officials had reviewed the Deepwater Port Act and its legislative history and determined the application area should focus on the circular area surrounding the offshore loading and unloading point rather than include the pipeline to shore, MARAD said.

The Fifth Circuit disagreed with that interpretation.

The court pointed to the statute's definition of a deepwater port, which expressly includes components and equipment, including pipelines, located seaward of the high-water mark.

Because of that definition, the court held the application area must encompass the entire deepwater port site, including its offshore pipeline.

The court also rejected arguments from the government and GulfLink that requiring pipelines to be included could interfere with the development of deepwater ports because numerous pipelines already cross throughout the Gulf of Mexico.

The law does not prohibit pipeline crossings generally, the court said. Instead, it requires that only one deepwater port, including its pipelines, be approved within a single application area.

Executive Director of Better Brazoria Melanie Oldham welcomed the ruling.

"This decision is an important victory for Brazoria County communities and for lawful, transparent decision-making," Oldham said in an emailed statement. "Federal agencies must follow the safeguards Congress established before approving major industrial projects off our coast. Better Brazoria will continue working to ensure that community voices are heard and that any further agency proceedings comply fully with the law."