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.
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