The Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), allowing American infrastructure projects to move forward without Federal Agencies having to consider broad and indirect environmental impacts. In other words, another bureaucratic hurdle was removed today. The ruling directly affects a project in Utah that planned an 88-mile railroad expansion to increase the transport of crude oil. It represents a major win for business and future infrastructure undertakings as the NEPA regulations can no longer require investigations into the environmental impacts upstream or downstream from the project itself.

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The railroad expansion project in Utah would increase the amount of oil transported daily from around 80,000-85,000 barrels to between 225,000 to 350,000 barrels. The increase in oil transported would increase the domestic energy supply, energy security, and help contribute to growth in both the energy sector and the American economy.

NEPA was signed into law in 1970, and “requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions.” As with all federal regulations, NEPA’s powers have been broadly applied, often resulting in complications with American infrastructure projects.

In the past, NEPA has been blamed for limiting American infrastructure projects in their development, according to the American Enterprise Institute. These projects generally take four-and-a-half years to be approved, and tend to come back in documents over 600 pages long. Furthermore, NEPA-related litigation is both costly and generally increases the timeframe and uncertainty in which the project should be completed. This disproportionately affects small contractors who often can’t afford to be NEPA compliant and constantly lose out to large, more mainstream competitors.

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Opponents of the ruling claim that this will make way for increased damage to the environment. However, by hamstringing infrastructure initiatives, which slow economic growth, we limit our ability to innovate on environmental solutions. A far more promising prospect.

The Supreme Court ruling stands as a win for American business, energy independence, and the American economy.

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling in a lawsuit over the Uinta Basin Railway, limiting the reach of the National Environmental Policy Act.

In a unanimous ruling, the justices reversed a lower court’s decision that effectively blocked the railway project in eastern Utah. The Court declared that “NEPA requires agencies to focus on the environmental effects of the project at issue” and not necessarily the environmental “effects of upstream oil drilling or downstream oil refining.”

“Simply stated, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock. The goal of the law is to inform agency decision making, not to paralyze it,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the opinion.

The ruling is a win for the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition and the state of Utah, which have pushed the project for years.

“This is a big deal for rural Utah. Especially for the eastern area of Utah, the Uintah Basin, they have not had transportation options. As most people are aware, it’s a two lane road over a very high mountain pass any which way you go,” Keith Heaton, the head of the coalition, told FOX 13 News on Thursday.

The Uinta Basin Railway would be an 88-mile rail line that would help get oil from eastern Utah to other parts of the country for refining.

“Without transportation, it’s really hard to have a diversified economy and so this will really benefit the citizens of the Uintah basin and the entire state of Utah. This decision is a really great day for building America,” said Heaton.

Eagle County, Colo., and environmental groups had opposed the Uinta Basin Railway project. They noted the ruling will have broader implications for infrastructure projects and their impact on the environment.

“This disastrous decision to undermine our nation’s bedrock environmental law means our air and water will be more polluted, the climate and extinction crises will intensify, and people will be less healthy,” said Wendy Park, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It guarantees that bureaucrats can put their heads in the sand and ignore the harm federal projects will cause to ecosystems, wildlife and the climate. What it doesn’t guarantee is the ill-conceived Uinta Basin Railway’s construction.

“The last thing we need is another climate bomb on wheels that the communities along its proposed route say they don’t want. We’ve been fighting this project for years, and we’ll keep fighting to make sure this railway is never built.”

Politically, the project has been favored by state Republican leaders and the Ute Tribe, especially as the state has leaned heavily into developing new sources of energy.

“I think it’s telling this was a unanimous decision. This was not close,” Gov. Cox told reporters on Thursday. “We’re finally putting a stop to these extremist groups that have been using a law that was meant to make our environment cleaner and to help humans progress. They’ve done the exact opposite.”

Senate President J. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, called it a “significant victory for Utah and American energy independence.”

“The Uinta Basin Railway will power our economy by connecting rural Utah to national markets, supporting job creation and energy production. Utah already leads the nation with low energy prices, and this project helps secure our state’s position as a global energy leader, delivering reliable, safe and affordable power for generations to come,” he said in a statement.

Read the U.S. Supreme Court ruling here:

WASHINGTON — In a win for business interests that chafe at burdensome environmental studies, the Supreme Court on Thursday gave a boost to a planned 88-mile railroad project that would transport crude oil in Utah.

The court ruled in favor of an alliance of local counties that support the project, called the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, concluding that the federal environmental review process did not have to consider potential broader, indirect impacts.

The conservative-majority court was unanimous on the bottom line, although the three liberal justices differed on the reasoning. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case.

The court ruled that consideration of broader downstream impacts of the project were not required under a federal law called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the court, said some federal judges have incorrectly applied NEPA and allowed it to be used as a broad weapon to challenge major development projects.

“NEPA has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents … to try to stop or at least slow down new infrastructure and construction projects,” he wrote.

This has the effect of delaying projects for years, Kavanaugh said.

“Fewer projects make it to the finish line. Indeed, fewer projects make it to the starting line,” he added. “Those that survive often end up costing much more than is anticipated or necessary.”

Environmental groups that had challenged the railroad’s approval decried the ruling, with Sam Sankar, a lawyer at Earthjustice, saying it undermined precedent that said federal agencies should “look before they leap when approving projects that could harm communities and the environment.”

Although the coalition won at the Supreme Court, the project still has to undergo further review by the federal Surface Transportation Board before it can move forward.

The railroad would bring oil from the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah by connecting the area to the national rail network.

“It represents a turning point for rural Utah — bringing safer, sustainable, more efficient transportation options, and opening new doors for investment and economic stability,” said Keith Heaton, the coalition’s director.

The opposition to the project was led by Eagle County, Colorado, which claims it will suffer from downstream effects of the railroad, and several environmental groups.

The county’s lawyers said it would be directly affected by the project, with 9 out of every 10 trains that use the new railroad eventually passing through it on an existing line that runs along the Colorado River.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who also opposes the plan, said in a statement that NEPA should require “projects to be fully informed of all potential environmental hazards before shovels go into the ground.”

The Surface Transportation Board conducted an environmental review and gave the railroad the green light to move forward.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found flaws in the analysis as well as other parts of the approval process, and in a 2023 ruling sent it back to the agency for further review.

The case arose as NEPA has faced criticism for unnecessarily slowing down major projects.

In 2023, then-President Joe Biden signed new legislation that sought to streamline the process. It requires agencies to only consider “reasonably foreseeable” climate impacts and limits reports to 150 pages.

Gorsuch stepped aside after the court had agreed to hear the case, citing the court’s ethics rules. Liberal groups and more than a dozen members of Congress had urged him to recuse himself over his previous links to billionaire Philip Anschutz.

One of Anschutz’s companies, Anschutz Exploration Corp., which drills for oil and gas, filed a brief in the case backing the coalition.