Supreme Court Narrows Agency Environmental Reviews
Case Name and Number: Seven Cty. Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle Cty., No. 23-975
Introduction: Today, the Supreme Court held in a unanimous 8-0 decision that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) does not require agencies evaluating the environmental impacts of their actions to consider the effects of other projects separate in time or space.
Background: In 2021, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board approved a railway connecting Utah’s Uinta Basin to a national freight network, facilitating the transport of crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries. Pursuant to NEPA, the Board prepared an environmental impact statement (EIS) that analyzed the project’s environmental effects. The EIS did not, however, analyze the effects of potential increased oil drilling or refining. After the Board approved the railway, a Colorado county and several environmental groups petitioned the D.C. Circuit for review, claiming that the Board violated NEPA. The D.C. Circuit vacated the order approving the railway, holding that the Board violated NEPA by failing to more extensively analyze upstream and downstream effects.
Issue: Whether NEPA requires an agency to evaluate environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the action the agency is taking.
Court’s Holding: In an opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court held that NEPA did not require the Board to analyze the effects of upstream and downstream projects that are separate in time or place from the railway approval.
The Court first reinforced its prior holdings emphasizing that NEPA is a procedural statute and that agency NEPA analysis is subject to judicial deference. The Court also emphasized that lower courts may remedy a deficient EIS by vacating the underlying project only when there is reason to believe that the agency might disapprove the project if it added more to the EIS.
The Court also held that NEPA requires an agency to analyze the environmental effects only of the specific project it is approving, rather than geographically or temporally distinct projects that may be built in that project’s wake. Applying that holding to the Board’s decision, the Court reasoned that there was no “reasonably close causal relationship” between the railroad project and downstream and upstream oil drilling and refining. The Court further explained that NEPA does not require agencies to analyze the effects of projects over which they do not exercise regulatory authority. Because the Board does not regulate oil production, the Court held, it is not required to evaluate the environmental effects of oil production when conducting NEPA review.
Justice Sotomayor authored a concurrence in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined. The concurring justices would have resolved the issue based solely on the ground that the Board was not statutorily responsible for the effects of upstream or downstream oil production.
The Court’s opinion could make it more difficult for plaintiffs to use NEPA to stall federal infrastructure projects in future litigation. The decision could also provide direction to agencies that will be revising their NEPA regulations or expediting permitting decisions pursuant to the President’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order on Unleashing American Energy.
Read the opinion here.