Key Takeaways
- The Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision invalidating the Surface Transportation Board's environmental analysis and approval of a new rail line connecting Utah's remote Uinta Basin to a rail network that could carry waxy crude oil from the basin to Gulf Coast refineries.
- The Court concluded that NEPA did not require the Board to study environmental impacts from "upstream or downstream [oil drilling and refining] projects separate in time or place from the 88-mile railroad line's construction and operation."
- The Court's ruling was based on (1) the fact that courts must accord APA deference to an agency's decision-making under NEPA and (2) NEPA's textual focus on "the proposed action."
- The decision reaffirms the Court's holding in Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, 541 U.S 752 (2004) that NEPA does not require a federal agency to analyze effects of a proposed action it has no authority to prevent.
- The Court recognized that a NEPA violation requiring remand to the agency for further analysis does not always require interim vacatur of the challenged decision.
The Supreme Court of the United States' opinion, issued May 29, 2025, in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, reaffirms the Court's earlier, seminal decisions expounding judicial review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Stressing the "purely procedural" nature of NEPA (and noting that Congress may not even have intended for NEPA documents to be judicially reviewable, slip op. n.2), the Court explained that NEPA is a "procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock" that should "inform agency decisionmaking, not ... paralyze it." In particular, the decision cements the Court's earlier holdings in Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 410 (1976) that an agency's determination of the scope of impacts to analyze under NEPA is entitled to deference, and in Public Citizen v. NHTSA, 541 U.S. 752 (2004) that an agency is not required to analyze impacts it has no jurisdiction or ability to prevent. As a variant of the second holding, the Court explained that NEPA did not require the agency to consider effects "of upstream and downstream projects that are separate in time or place from" the project for which the permit was sought (the Uinta Basin Railway). Although the Seven County decision breaks little new ground, it will prove useful as a recent, 8-0 affirmation of the Court's earlier precedents circumscribing the scope of a court's review of NEPA decisions.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court and was joined by four other justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Neil Gorsuch was recused from the decision.
Background
A coalition of Utah counties proposed an 88-mile railway project into Utah's relatively isolated Uinta Basin. The railway would connect the Uinta Basin to the national rail network and carry primarily waxy crude oil destined for refinery markets along the Gulf Coast. The Surface Transportation Board (STB or Board) approved Seven County's proposal in 2021 following an "expedited" Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) (that was nonetheless 637 pages long with 3,000 pages of appendices). Eagle County, Colorado, and the Center for Biological Diversity sued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, challenging the decision. The challengers argued that the STB should have considered potential "upstream" effects on increased oil drilling in Utah and Colorado and "downstream" oil refining activities more than 1,000 miles away along the Gulf Coast. The D.C...
