The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on a case that could reshape a key environmental law and determine the future of an oil railway project in the west.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to conduct a review of environmental impacts before making any decisions and then issue a “detailed statement” of the review.
SCOTUS heard arguments in the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County case, to decide whether an agency is required to study environmental impacts beyond the “proximate effects of the action over which the agency has regulatory authority.” Justices appeared open to reconsidering the scope of NEPA, but did not specify how they would adjust the law.
The Seven Country Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC) petitioned the Surface Transportation Board (STB), a federal agency, to build an over 80-mile transportation system to connect crude oil from Utah’s Uinta Basin to a national railway.
The STB released an Environmental Impact Statement on the railway, but opponents of the project in Eagle County, Colorado, argued that the federal agency did not consider all of its environmental effects – therefore, violating NEPA.
The case was brought to a D.C. Circuit Court, which ruled that STB had violated environmental law and that a new, more thorough review be conducted before the project moves forward. In March 2024, SCIC petitioned SCOTUS in the case.
Paul Clement, the attorney backing the SCIC project, argued that it is a “straightforward case” and requested NEPA be limited to “proximate cause” principles.
“NEPA is a self-described procedural statute. It is designed to inform government decision-making, not paralyze it,” Clement argued on Tuesday.
Clement called the D.C. court’s request to conduct further environmental review “a recipe for turning a procedural statute into a substantive roadblock.”
“All of that is not just remote in time and space but falls well outside the STB’s limited remand – remit, and it falls within the jurisdiction of other agencies that can address those issues comprehensively and concretely if and when they arise,” he said during the oral arguments.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, on Dec. 4, dismissed himself from the case ahead of arguments.
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