In a decision announced on Thursday, the Supreme Court has curtailed the extent of environmental reviews required for major infrastructure projects. This ruling is expected to expedite the approval process for projects such as highways, airports, and pipelines.
The decision represents a recent setback for environmental advocacy groups at the conservative-leaning Supreme Court. In recent years, the court has issued rulings that have scaled back regulations aimed at protecting wetlands and reducing interstate air pollution. President Donald Trump had frequently criticized the government’s environmental review process, describing it as overly cumbersome.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enacted during President Richard Nixon’s administration, is a foundational environmental law from the early stages of the modern environmental movement. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the court’s opinion, and there were no dissenting opinions, indicating agreement on the outcome from both liberal and conservative justices.
Justice Kavanaugh stated that the environmental question in the case, which concerned an 88-mile railway intended to transport waxy crude oil from the Uinta Basin in Utah to existing rail networks, was “not close.” He wrote that courts should grant significant deference to agency decisions and refrain from excessive oversight, provided those decisions fall within a broad range of reasonableness. Kavanaugh further clarified that NEPA is intended as a procedural check rather than a substantive barrier, with the law’s objective being to inform agency decision-making, not to impede it.
Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself from the case, although he did not provide a reason for this decision. His recusal followed arguments from Democrats on Capitol Hill suggesting that Denver-based billionaire Philip Anschutz, a longtime ally of Justice Gorsuch, had a financial interest in the case’s outcome.
The court’s three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—concurred with the court’s judgment but offered different reasoning. In an opinion written by Justice Sotomayor on behalf of the three, they argued that environmental reviews conducted by federal agencies should be limited to the agencies’ specific expertise. In this particular case, the Surface Transportation Board, which conducted the environmental review, primarily focuses on transportation projects rather than oil refining. Justice Sotomayor emphasized that under NEPA, agencies must consider the environmental impacts for which their decisions would be responsible. She stated that the board correctly determined it would not be responsible for the consequences of oil production occurring upstream or downstream from the railway because it could not lawfully consider those consequences as part of its approval process.
The case centered on the proposed 88-mile railway designed to transport waxy crude oil from the Uinta Basin in Utah to existing rail networks. This infrastructure development would facilitate the movement of oil and gas products to refineries located in other parts of the country. The Surface Transportation Board conducted an environmental review of the railway, as mandated by law. However, environmental groups contended that the review should have been more comprehensive and should have included consideration of the downstream impacts associated with the railway, specifically the environmental effects of increased crude oil refining.
The Biden administration supported the federal agency’s less extensive review, indicating an alignment of views between the Biden and Trump administrations on this matter. During his first term, President Trump frequently criticized environmental studies conducted under NEPA as being too cumbersome and time-consuming. In 2020, he stated at the White House that these delays wasted money, hindered project development, and prevented job creation. He emphasized that his administration had made it a top priority to address this regulatory issue from his first day in office.
Congress approved amendments to NEPA the previous year, which, in many instances, now require these environmental reviews to be limited to 150 pages, contrasting with prior practices where studies could extend to thousands of pages. Supporters of the railway project highlighted this legislative change during arguments, questioning how an agency could comprehensively consider all downstream effects within a 150-page document.
Eagle County, Colorado, along with several environmental organizations, filed a lawsuit challenging the environmental review, arguing that the more limited exploration of potential environmental impacts would have nationwide significance. Sam Sankar, vice president of programs for Earthjustice, representing some of the plaintiffs, told CNN in December that the case extends beyond the Uinta Basin railway. He argued that the fossil fuel industry and its allies were making extreme arguments that would obscure the public’s understanding of the obvious health consequences associated with government decisions. He contended that the court should adhere to established legal precedent, warning that communities would bear the consequences if it did not.
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