The federal government is urging the Supreme Court to uphold an agency’s decision authorizing construction of a rail line in Utah for transporting crude oil.
The Aug. 28 filing by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar previews the arguments the government will make when the court hears the case at a hearing expected in the fall. The government argues that a federal appeals court misinterpreted a federal environmental statute.
In the case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Biden administration is opposing environmentalist groups that are against building an 85-mile rail line to connect the shale oil-rich Uinta Basin region in Utah to the national rail network and out-of-state oil refineries.
The court agreed in June to hear the appeal for the case but has not yet scheduled oral arguments.
The lead petitioner is a coalition comprised of seven Utah counties. Uinta Basin Railway LLC, the other petitioner, was formed to build the rail line. Eagle County, Colorado, is the lead respondent, and others include the Center for Biological Diversity.
The case goes back to 2020 when the coalition asked the federal Surface Transportation Board to exempt it from formal application requirements for its proposed project involving the construction of a rail line with the primary purpose of transporting crude oil found in the Uinta Basin.
The coalition asked the STB to conditionally approve its exemption petition on the merits of the transportation project subject to the environmental impact process required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Over the opposition of environmentalist groups, the board granted preliminary approval to the exemption petition in January 2021. The groups sought reconsideration of the decision, which was denied.
By September 2021, the board had issued an environmental impact statement and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had released its biological impact opinion. The STB released its final exemption decision in December 2021, finding that the merits of the transportation project outweighed its environmental effects.
The environmentalist groups appealed, seeking review of the board’s exemption orders and the environmental and biological impact opinions, and claiming the board violated NEPA and the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the challengers in August 2023, finding the STB failed to adhere to NEPA. The circuit court found the environmental and biological impact opinions were of poor quality and failed to properly examine the project application.
The board “cannot avoid its responsibility under NEPA to identify and describe the environmental effects of increased oil drilling and refining on the ground that it lacks authority to prevent, control, or mitigate those developments,” the circuit court stated.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 1989 case that NEPA was enacted to protect the environment, but it is “well settled that NEPA itself does not mandate particular results.”
The law “encourag[es] productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment,” “promot[es] efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment,” and “enrich[es] the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation,” the brief states.
The STB failed to properly consider the environmental effects of the rail project, which would lead to an additional 3,300 oil wells being drilled in the Uinta Basin over a 15-year period, the brief said. The board studied only the effect of the new wells that would be drilled “within several hundred feet of the rail line,” it stated.
The Supreme Court is expected to set a date for oral arguments in the case in the coming weeks.
