SEPT/OCT 2025 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 55 ELR 10473
DIALOGUE
THE FUTURE OF NEPA REVIEW:
UNPACKING SEVEN COUNTY
On May 29, the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle
County, holding that substantial judicial deference to agencies is required in National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA) cases, including in deciding “(i) how far to go in considering indirect environmental effects from
the project at hand and (ii) whether to analyze environmental effects from other projects separate in time or
place.” The decision narrows the scope of NEPA review and will likely have lasting impacts on federal infra-
structure proposals. On July 10, 2025, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts to unpack
the decision and discuss its potential implications for the future of NEPA. Below, we present a transcript of that
discussion, which has been edited for st yle, clarity, and space considerations.
SUMMARY
Jarryd Page (moderator) is a Sta Attorney at the
Environmental Law Institute.
Justin Pidot is a Professor of Law and Ashby Lohse Chair
in Water and Natural Resources at the University of
Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.
Fre d Wag ner is an Environmental Consultant at Jacobs.
Kirti Datla is Director of Strategic Legal Advocacy at
Earthjustice.
James M. McElsh Jr. is a Senior Advisor at the
Environmental Law Institute.
Jarryd Page: ere’s a lot going on with new developments
in the areas of energy, the environment, natural resources,
and climate. e National Environmental Policy Act
(N EPA )1 is no exception. e Environmental Law I nstitute
(ELI), in fact, has been tracing developments in this law
since we were founded in December 1969, the same month
that NEPA was passed by the U.S. Congress.
e law has only been amended signicantly once, in
2023,2 and regulations by the Council on Environmental
Quality (CEQ) have stayed more or less the same for most
of the law’s history until a series of changes that began
during the rst Donald Trump Administration. Given
the relatively moderate developments for most of the past
50 years, the past several months have brought a series of
ground-shifting changes.
In April, ELI co-hosted a webinar with the Tulane Cen-
ter for Environmental Law titled NEPA in 2025: Rumor,
Reality, and the Way Forward.3 at event looked at some
of the developments from late last year and early this year,
1. 42 U.S.C. §§4321 et seq.
2. Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 118-5, 137 Stat. 10.
3. ELI, NEPA in 2025: Rumor, Reality, and the Way Forward, https://www.eli.
org/events/nepa-2025-rumor-reality-and-way-forward (last visited Aug. 7,
2025).
including unexpected decisions from federal cou rts, execu-
tive orders, the rescission of CEQ regulations via an interim
nal rule, empirical data on NEPA permitting timelines,
and more. But hanging over that discussion was the pros-
pect of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Seven County
Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County.4 at decision and
its implications are the focus of our conversation today.
Our discussion will be d ivided into four segments. First,
I’m going to briey introduce Seven County and our panel-
ists. en each panelist will oer remarks on the decision
from their perspective, the biggest takeaway from what
they saw, and some lingering questions or things to look
out for on the horizon. After that, we’ll move to a moder-
ated discussion to better understand what it means to be
working in the NEPA space these days. en, we’ll take
questions from the audience.
So, what was Seven County, and what did the Court say
in the decision? As brief backstory, the Surface Transpor-
tation Board (STB) conducted an environmental impact
statement (EIS) in connection with the approval of an
88-mile rail line in Utah. e board’s EIS indicated that
oil production was a foreseeable result of the rail line. It
included greenhouse gas emissions estimates that might
result from the crude oil that was carried on the line, but
it did not do a detailed analysis of these emissions or other
environmental impacts from the increase in oil production
and rening.
After the board approved the rail line, Eagle County
and environmental organizat ions led suit allegin g, among
other things, that the boa rd did not take the requisite “hard
look” in the EIS—that in looking upstream at more oil
production and downstream at more rening and combus-
tion, it did not look adequately at those impacts. In 2023,
4. 605 U.S. __ (2025).
Copyright © 2025 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, https://www.eli.org
