In 8-0 Ruling, Supreme Court Significantly Narrows NEPA Environmental Reviews
“Congress did not design NEPA for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.”
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued an 8-0 decision that substantially limits the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the country’s foundational environmental law.
The ruling makes it easier for infrastructure projects, such as highways, pipelines, railways, and wind farms, to gain federal approval by narrowing the environmental impacts agencies must consider during review.
At issue in Thursday’s case was the proposed building of an 88-mile stretch of railroad that would connect Utah’s oil-rich Uinta Basin to the national freight rail network. Once built, the new rail lines would facilitate the transportation of crude oil to refineries in Texas and Louisiana along the Gulf Coast.
In carrying out the review, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board sought input from other agencies, prepared a 3,600-page report and approved the railroad project, after concluding that its transportation and economic benefits outweighed the negative impact on the environment. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington subsequently ruled that the Board had violated NEPA, by failing to consider the environmental effects from oil drilling and production, referred to as upstream, and oil refining and distribution, known as downstream.
The Supreme Court, however, reversed that ruling, and in so doing dramatically limited the 1970 law. The vote was unanimous, though Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in deliberations, and the court’s three liberals wrote a more limited concurring opinion. The Court’s conservatives, however, took a major whack at the NEPA law.
In his analysis at Watts Up With That blog, Charles Rotter notes that the ruling emphasized that courts must defer to agencies’ decisions regarding the scope and content of environmental reviews, as long as those decisions are reasonable and adequately explained. Courts should not “micromanage” agency choices or expand NEPA into a tool for indefinite litigation and delay….and the timing of the ruling could not be more perfect.
And make no mistake: that’s the goal for many green activists. NEPA, once a procedural statute meant to inform agencies, has become a cudgel to halt development. Environmental impact statements now stretch to thousands of pages, often taking years—and millions of dollars—to complete. These reviews are less about stewardship than obstruction, used by opponents of any development as a bureaucratic chokehold.
As Justice Kavanaugh rightly stated, courts are not meant to, “micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness”.
This ruling reinforces that principle and restores a shred of common sense to environmental regulation.
This decision also arrives at a time when the American economy is gasping for infrastructure upgrades—bridges, pipelines, rail, transmission lines. All of it. Yet too often, federal judges acting as philosopher kings have halted projects based on the flimsiest environmental pretexts. In recent years, judicial overreach has been the favored tactic of climate warriors who couldn’t get their agenda passed through Congress.
The team at Pacific Legal Foundation observed that by overturning the DC Circuit, the Supreme Court ruled that NEPA analyses need only address the direct impacts of the project under review, not every conceivable future or geographically separate consequence, especially those outside the agency’s regulatory authority.
There’s no way to put it better than the Supreme Court did. “No rule of reason worthy of that title would require an agency to prepare an [Environmental Impact Statement] addressing effects from another project that is separate in time or place from the project at hand—particularly when it would require the agency to speculate about the effects of a separate project that is outside its regulatory jurisdiction.” Why would we ask an agency to analyze something that it cannot control and about which it has no expertise?
The bottom line, according to the Court: “Congress did not design NEPA for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.” It took the Court 55 years to make this clear, but hopefully this Seven County decision will reduce court-imposed delays on needed improvements to infrastructure and help America make better use of its vast natural resources.
It’s great to be able to report some good news regarding a SCOTUS decision. It’s even better when that ruling reins in the abusive antics of the eco-activist bureaucrats.
🚨 Breaking: The U.S. Supreme Court has reined in misuse of NEPA by anti-forestry litigants. This ruling restores common sense to environmental reviews and clears the way for forest projects that reduce wildfire risks and improve resilience. READ MORE 👉 https://t.co/Q7gzbHMt06 pic.twitter.com/1aCgen86Gi
— AFRC (@amforest_org) May 29, 2025
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
8-0
Nice!!
FYI, this is the case Gorsuch was essentially pressured into recusing himself by the usual suspects because he knows Philip Anschutz, a billionaire who’s NOT a litigant in this case but who has energy holdings. Gorsuch worked for him briefly decades ago.
In contrast, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the GENERAL COUNSEL of the ACLU and the founder of the Women’s Rights Project there. She worked with the ACLU as General Counsel until her appointment to the DC Circuit Court from where she was later elevated to the Supreme Court. I don’t believe she ever recused herself from any case where the ACLU was a litigant much less peripherally, distantly involved, as Anschutz is in this case.
Ginsburg never even recused herself when she was hearing cases that were being litigated by her HUSBAND’s LAW FIRM.
When asked when she would retire, Ginsburg stated that she would stay on the court as long as she could do the job full steam.
She stayed on the court long after she ran out of steam, couldn’t do the job and died seriously incapacitated. Her law clerks probably wrote her decisions at the end.
Remember her workout video the commies released to prove she was tip-top? The trainer said “I barely keep up her” or something equally absurd. I think she was dead 6 or so months later.
Interesting that I don’t remember a lot of litigation involving the environmentally destructive, “clean energy”, solar and wind projects.
Well, they remove all of that bad fossil fuel stuff from the world, so their positive impacts – by definition – outweigh their negative. You have to kill a few million birds and destroy a few million trees to make an omelet, you know.
What’s really nice is to see that the decision is based on clear common sense. So, there’s oil drilling going on at one end, and refining going on at the other. Building a railroad in-between them is not going to cause those activities to have ANY impact on the environment – they already exist and have impacts. But (intentional) bureaucratic creep is how we got to the Deep State.
The environmental effects from oil drilling, refining and distribution is subject to their own respective — and separate — NEPA reviews. Even the Liberals on the Court knew better than to uphold a ruling that assumes a party in the future might fail a review and use that as a reason to expand the judiciary’s power.
Now roll back (or at least halt the progression of) the insane CAFE standards that have strangled our vehicles for the last few decades. Cars and trucks with internal combustion engines emit only a few percent of the pollutants that cars put out half a century ago with more power and less fuel consumed. The clear skies over cities that once had major air quality problems are proof of that.
.
Hear! Hear!
I work on cars for a living , have done since 1966. I will strongly contest the claim that today’s cars get better mileage… and they fail to do so by adopting technology that is insanely complicated and expensive, for very minor gains in clean emissions or fuel economy. I can name at least half a dozen full sized sedans/station wagons from the late 1950’s onward that willl cruise at 85 mph and return 30 to 45 mpg, and last hundreds of thousands of miles.
I just replaced the cylinder head gasket on an 09 Mazda 5. Stupid cheap plastic water fitting failed.resulting in overheating. Using the plastic saves maybe five ounces weight.. but led to a $3000 rrpair, book time 14 hours. I’ve replaced cylinder heads on Volvos, Mercedes, MG’s, in three hours. Most of odays engines use variable camshaft timing. How ridiculous!! Even with this complex prone to failure system (not to mention expensive) they still can’t get above 20 mpg. Half what my old volvos would get, And in all my years working on those cars I never once had o replace a blown cylinder head gasket.
No wonder I’ve seen those Volvos sell for $40K and above, in clean rust free condition. I’ve known several to still be flying along with well above 400,000 miles on the six-place odometer.
more agencies= less freedom for people
But, more jobs for those with degrees that render them otherwise unemployable.
This rogue agency should have been reined in long ago. When they turned cow ponds into “Navigable” waterways they became monsters.
Now do micromanaging of our federal law enforcement agencies enforcing our immigration laws.
Well don’t stop micromanage there only.
And I am shocked 8 all voted the same way.
Why only 8 of 9?
Gorsuch recused for personal connections.
You will now only be able to hug the tree until it is time to cut it down!
cut down to be used to build things, and new ones replanted in its place. Just like growing asparagus or oats.
But the huggers don’t get their jollies hugging either of those. Strange, that…….
How refreshing to see SCOTUS adopt the principle of Judicial modesty and deference to core Executive powers but not one jot beyond, if only they would apply this more often to issues like immigration,. Nat Security, Diplomacy.
Leave a Comment