Supreme Court Limits Scope of Nation’s Bedrock Environmental Law

The Supreme Court today severely limited the scope of the nation’s landmark environmental law in a case that could give new life to a Utah oil train project.

For nearly 50 years the National Environmental Policy Act has required federal agencies to analyze the potential environmental harms of a proposed project, engage with communities that could be affected and disclose those potential harms to the public before approval. It also gave the public legal recourse to sue federal agencies if they overlooked important environmental harms.

Today's ruling relieves federal agencies of the obligation to review all foreseeable environmental harms and grants them more leeway to decide what potential environmental harms to analyze, despite what communities may think is important. It tells agencies that they can ignore certain foreseeable impacts just because they are too remote in time or space. And even if the agency makes the wrong call about how to draw that line, the court has now said that the agency gets deference.

“Today’s decision undermines decades of legal precedent that told federal agencies to look before they leap when approving projects that could harm communities and the environment,” said Earthjustice Senior Vice President of Program Sam Sankar. “The Trump administration will treat this decision as an invitation to ignore environmental concerns as it tries to promote fossil fuels, kill off renewable energy, and destroy sensible pollution regulations.”

The case concerned a Utah industry coalition and a Utah railway company that asked the Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court decision tossing out the approval of an 88-mile oil railway. The railway’s purpose is to transport waxy crude oil from the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah through the Colorado Rockies to Gulf Coast refineries.

“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. 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,” said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “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.”

The ruling means the federal agency responsible for approving the railway can ignore the risks of increased oil extraction in the Basin and the potential harm from refining to Gulf communities in Texas and Louisiana. Even if these harms are inevitable, communities and courts have no power to compel the agency to consider them.

Today’s decision comes amid broader confusion surrounding how government agencies will assess future projects. In February the Trump administration rescinded NEPA regulations dating to the Carter era, setting the process for project approvals back half a century.

Additionally, the Trump administration — with help from Elon Musk’s so-called Department for Government Efficiency — has gutted the agencies responsible for analyzing the harm industry projects could cause to the environment and communities.

“The appeals court had ruled that the federal agency that approved the railway failed in its obligations to consider the regional consequences of massively increased oil extraction on the Uinta Basin, the increased air pollution for the communities in Texas and Louisiana where the oil would be refined, and the global climate consequences,” said Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “The Supreme Court’s ruling will allow all these consequences to unfold without meaningful restraint. This court has made a name for itself making rulings that mock science and common sense and fail to protect the common good. This unfortunate ruling fits that same pattern.”

“This decision is terrible news for the entire Colorado River Basin,” said John Weisheit, conservation director at Living Rivers. “To avoid the pending collapse of the Colorado River, we have to immediately reduce water consumption by 25% and cut carbon emissions by 50% by the end of this decade. Our federal decision-makers must deny any project that counters these objectives. The Uinta Basin Railway unquestionably falls into that category and should never see the light of day.”

“Regrettably, the Supreme Court has scored one for the oil companies who don’t want you to look too closely at the harm their product will do to Black and Brown communities in Cancer Alley,” said Nathaniel Shoaff, Sierra Club senior attorney. “Our bedrock environmental laws, like NEPA, are meant to ensure people are protected from corporate polluters. Fossil fuel infrastructure projects do not exist in a vacuum and have far-reaching impacts on communities, especially those on the frontlines of climate change or those who face serious health harms from increased pollution. Today’s decision will undoubtedly help the fossil fuel industry, but Sierra Club will not stop fighting projects that will have devastating consequences for people and the planet.”

“The government has an obligation to ‘look before it leaps’ when it comes to major federal actions. At heart, the law says we have to take a hard look at reasonably foreseeable consequences — and that law has recently been under increasing attack as business interests try to sacrifice our country’s irreplaceable natural treasures,” said Katherine Merlin, staff attorney for WildEarth Guardians. “Today’s decision is a devastating loss for our wild places, our wild rivers, and for all of the human and non-human communities that depend on a clean environment and stable climate. This is another step toward returning the U.S. legal system to the early 20th century, when the rampant and heedless destruction of entire ecosystems and species happened without much notice.”

Earthjustice and the Center of Biological Diversity represented Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the Sierra Club, Living Rivers and WildEarth Guardians. Eagle County was represented by Kaplan Kirsch LLP and Willy Jay of Goodwin Procter LLP.