The Supreme Court just dropped a hammer on environmental red tape with an 8-0 A ruling that could turbocharge infrastructure projects across America.
Reason reported that the Supreme Court sided with a Utah railroad initiative in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, overturning a lower court’s block on the project and setting a precedent that federal agencies don’t need to play fortune teller for unrelated environmental impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Let’s rewind to 2020, when the Seven Counties Infrastructure Coalition, representing seven Utah counties, pitched an 88-mile railroad track to connect an oil-rich rural area to the national network.
This line would shuttle crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries, promising economic boosts for a region itching to tap its resources.
The federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) didn’t just rubber-stamp it—they held six public meetings, gathered over 1,900 comments, and churned out a whopping 3,600-page environmental impact statement (EIS) as NEPA demands.
By 2021, the STB gave the green light for construction, only to hit a brick wall when Eagle County, Colorado, and environmental groups sued, claiming the review ignored downstream effects like more oil drilling or refining impacts.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the challengers, scrapping the approval faster than you can say “bureaucratic overreach.”
Enter the Supreme Court on Thursday, with an 8-0 smackdown (Justice Neil Gorsuch recused) that flipped the lower court’s ruling on its head.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, penning the majority opinion, made it crystal clear: “did not need” to overanalyze separate projects’ impacts—focus on the job at hand, folks.
Kavanaugh doubled down, stating courts should “afford substantial deference” to agencies and not “micromanage” their calls if they’re reasonably sound. Talk about a polite jab at judicial overreach—turns out, not every judge gets to play environmental czar.
He also noted NEPA’s drift into a “blunt and haphazard tool” wielded by opponents to stall projects, often inflating costs for everyone involved. When did a procedural law become a weapon to delay progress?
According to The Breakthrough Institute, NEPA challenges drag projects down by an average of 4.2 years—hardly a recipe for building the railroads, airports, or wind turbines we need.
This ruling could be a game-changer, especially since NEPA litigation has historically bogged down even clean energy initiatives, proving that red tape spares no one, green or otherwise.
Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, called it “particularly significant” for projects like pipelines, hinting it might trim NEPA’s burdens just enough to get shovels in the ground. If that doesn’t signal a win for common sense over endless lawsuits, what does?
While some worry this narrows environmental oversight, the Court’s nudge toward focusing on specific project impacts, rather than speculative domino effects, might just balance progress with responsibility.
After all, infrastructure shouldn’t be held hostage by guesses about what might happen miles away—let’s build smart, not paralyzed.