The Supreme Court’s Latest Gift to Trump Will Be ‘Disastrous’ for the Environment

The Supreme Court delivered a crushing blow to the National Environmental Policy Act, America’s cornerstone environmental law, on Thursday. With its unanimous ruling, the court will support the Donald Trump administration’s attempts to weaken the law and expedite fossil fuel projects.

Environmentalists argue that Thursday’s vote on a proposed oil train will result in fewer public participation in important government decision-making processes and more Americans being exposed to avoidable environmental, health, and climate harms. The fossil fuel sector is the biggest and most direct beneficiary.

Infrastructure Coalition of Seven County v. Eagle County, Colorado, is the most recent in an increasing number of extreme Supreme Court rulings that threaten the country’s fundamental civil rights and environmental safeguards.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is in question. The 1970 law mandates that before authorizing large projects like pipelines, refineries, and highways, federal agencies must take into account the possible effects on “the human environment” and notify and solicit public input. If the federal government disregards these regulations, the public has the right to file a lawsuit against it.

According to the Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic’s friend of the court brief, “NEPA has proven to be a vital civil rights tool that empowers those who have historically been excluded from decision-making processes.”. “Regardless of race, color, national origin, tribal affiliation, or income, NEPA guarantees that everyone with an interest in federal action can have a voice. “”.

Writing the conservative supermajority’s opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh decided to severely restrict the law to only consider a project’s most immediate effects. To some degree, the liberals concurred with the conservatives. In her concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, supported the majority’s decision to overturn a lower court decision while arguing for a far more narrow conclusion in the case. Justice Neil Gorsuch resigned, most likely because of his connections to the fossil fuel industry.

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Leah Litman, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan Law School, tells me, “It really underscores the extent to which seemingly unanimous opinions can actually conceal a lot of disagreement.”. In addition to cohosting the well-liked Supreme Court podcast Strict Scrutiny, Litman is the author of Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievances, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. It is evident that the three Democratic appointees’ opinions on NEPA differ significantly from those of the majority. They criticize the majority opinion for writing too widely. “”.

As a respondent in the case, Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president for programs at the environmental law firm Earthjustice, says, “The court definitely ruled against the plaintiffs, but it went far beyond that to mount a broad attack on NEPA itself.”. As it pushes fossil fuels, criticizes clean energy, attempts to repeal reasonable pollution laws, and asserts that it can completely disregard the reality of climate change when making decisions, this administration will interpret this decision as approval to completely disregard the environment. “.”.

The construction of a new 88-mile railway line to connect to an existing national railway in order to transport “waxy” crude oil out of Utah’s Uinta Basin is at the center of the Seven County case. After passing through Colorado and Utah, the oil would proceed to Texas and Louisiana for refinement.

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Eagle County, Colorado, and five environmental groups contended that the federal U.S. government approved the Uinta Basin Railway. A. Under the previous Trump administration, the Surface Transportation Board did not carry out the comprehensive analysis mandated by NEPA. The U. S. The D.C Court of Appeals. The Circuit mostly concurred. The board disregarded important “upstream” and “downstream” harms, including those caused by increased oil production in Utah, increased rail traffic in Colorado, and increased refining along the Gulf Coast, it was discovered. The railroad’s supporters made an appeal to the U. S. . The Supreme Court.

The most influential legal organizations in the country have taken notice of the case, including the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers’ organization, and the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s biggest business and oil industry lobbies. S. . Commerce Chamber.

The majority view mainly relies on the U.S. amicus brief. A. The largest business organization in the world, the Chamber of Commerce, frequently spends more money than any other group on federal lobbying. Within the Chamber, ExxonMobil is a prominent figure. Even though Justice Samuel Alito had recently acquired stock in a number of oil and gas companies as recently as September 2024 and had previously recused himself from cases involving fossil fuels, presumably due to these possible conflicts, he attended the hearing. Alito concurred with the Chamber in 73% of cases during the previous term.

According to the Chamber, which Justice Kavanaugh cites, NEPA is “a 1970 legislative acorn [that] has grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development.”. Following that, the opinion outlines new restrictions on the reach of NEPA, stating that “an agency may decline to evaluate environmental effects from separate projects upstream or downstream from the project at issue,” especially in cases where “those separate projects fall outside the agency’s regulatory authority.”. The opinion then urges the courts to show a great deal of deference to the government agency that is conducting the NEPA review in an attempt to curtail future litigation.

Because of the ruling, agencies are now able to concentrate their analysis solely on the current project proposal, which in this case is the 88 miles of new rail. Large-scale infrastructure projects, however, seldom have such limited effects, especially when taking greenhouse gas emissions into account.

For instance, proponents of the railway believe that its construction will enable the Uinta Basin’s total oil production to be quintupled, thereby establishing a new massive oil fracking hub. Due to its unusually thick viscosity, Uinta’s oil is referred to as “waxy oil” and requires heating in order to be transported.

From Utah and on to Colorado, the Uinta Railway would transport an estimated 350,000 new barrels of this waxy oil every day via a sometimes perilous 100-mile track along the Colorado River. The trains would be two miles long and carry 110 oil tanker cars. Refineries in areas already overburdened by pollution would be visited, including some of the most severely affected environmental justice communities in Texas and Louisiana’s Cancer Alley.

Those who live in states along the entire route are expected to suffer health effects from increased pollution, according to opponents. They point to increased pollution from increased oil fracking in Utah and the possibility of oil spills into the Colorado River from train derailments, endangering the drinking water supply of 40 million people across seven southwestern states, including 30 Native American Tribes. 53 million tons of carbon dioxide, or about the same as six coal-powered power plants, would be produced daily if an additional 350,000 barrels of oil were burned.

“We have worked hard to reduce the disproportionate burdens of pollution and environmental injustice on our communities caused by the fossil fuel industry,” according to a letter opposing the railway written by communities in Louisiana where the oil would be refined. Our situation will only get worse due to the massive influx of oil from Utah via train. “”.

Only the immediate effects on people and the environment along the 88-mile new railway should be considered during the NEPA review, according to the majority opinion.

Regarding the decision, Wendy Park believes it is “dreadful.”. Park is a senior lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, another respondent in the case and a national environmental protection organization. Since 2018, she has been suing the Uinta Basin Railway herself. By disregarding decades of precedent and the explicit language of NEPA, which states that agencies must take into account the reasonably foreseeable effects of their proposed actions, the ruling “draws artificial boundaries around the scope of NEPA review.”. This decision will result in increased pollution, habitat destruction, and unhealthy communities because it effectively permits agencies to ignore detrimental effects on wildlife, the air, and water. “”.

“This ruling will empower agencies to disregard the climate impact of their suggested actions.”. “It’s probably just the worst outcome we could have imagined,” Park continues. “”.

The setting in which the decision is being made is one of the main causes of Park’s worries. The Trump administration is actively trying to dismantle NEPA by removing its foundation. The regulations used by federal agencies to implement the law were repealed by the administration in April. Furthermore, the administration instructed agencies to stop taking into account environmental justice, climate change, and the cumulative effects of operations in their analyses.

Andrew Mergen informs me that the administration is essentially eliminating all substance from NEPA. Mergen has probably litigated more NEPA cases than any other lawyer in history, having worked for the Department of Justice’s environmental division for about thirty years. He serves as the Harvard Law School Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic’s Faculty Director. According to him, Seven Counties is the most important NEPA case in the last 20 years.

NEPA, according to Mergen, is “a profoundly important statute” and “the most copied and emulated environmental statute of all time,” affecting how states, other nations, and global financial institutions handle environmental disclosures. “Innumerable projects are redesigned as a result of the NEPA process to prevent needless, foolish, and poorly intended environmental harms. He co-authored a paper recently (and shared another) that debunked a lot of myths regarding environmental permits and NEPA as the targets of undo infrastructure obstruction.

He is in favor of giving agency experts more weight when making decisions, but he questions the Supreme Court’s timing because “those people are, by and large, gone, the agencies are being hollowed out,” and “Trump is in the process of completely gutting the federal agencies.”. “”.

Given its frequently expressed contempt for federal agencies as the foundation of the “administrative state,” the majority’s embrace of agency deference is also more than a little ironic. A little over a year ago, the ultraconservative supermajority on the Supreme Court decided to reverse the Chevron doctrine, which had directed courts to generally defer to the way federal agencies carry out and enforce the law. Loper Bright is the case that was argued by attorney Paul Clement. In Seven Counties, Clement made another argument for the railway, this time requesting greater agency deference, which was accepted by the majority.

Mergen agrees with the environmental justice community that NEPA’s perspective is being limited.

“Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities have endured decades of environmental hazards, including living close to toxic waste, breathing in polluted air, and experiencing the worst effects of climate change. NEPA has been a vital instrument for advocates fighting these injustices, according to a statement from Lourdes M. Rosado, President and General Counsel of LatinoJustice. It is blatantly offensive to communities of color to roll back NEPA’s regulations. “”.

In response to the decision on Thursday, John Beard, Jr. who resides in Port Arthur, Texas, a small, mostly Black and Hispanic community that is home to a Valero refinery that is anticipated to receive the new oil trains from the Uinta Basin Railway, asks me, “The question is, who will be held accountable if these NEPA concerns are not addressed and looked at? “.”.

In the end, Beard says, the issue is about the lives and health of people in his community and all along the rail, and the decision “seems to be a way of deferring responsibility and marginalizing those communities that are going to be adversely affected, so that their voice can’t be heard.”. “.”.

Litman, the author of Lawless, asserts that “[the conservative justices] are ultimately opposed to industry regulation, especially regulation of polluters and the fossil fuel industry.”. She says that if that means the justices will have to use “made-up” arguments to justify their logical stumbling blocks, they will.

Michael Burger serves as the Executive Director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He contends that future consideration of the climate will probably suffer as a result of the decision, but the impact will be decided by how the courts interpret it.

“How agencies and courts handle this case in the future will determine its legacy,” he says. “Undoubtedly, it appears to be designed to give this administration more flexibility to develop fossil fuels more quickly and conduct fewer environmental reviews than it otherwise would have had to. “I don’t believe there is any doubt that this decision will lead to less climate-related disclosure in NEPA reviews,” he continues. “”.

Earthjustice lawyer Sankar cautions that the courts are currently the only thing separating the people, the environment, and an administration that essentially represents the fossil fuel industry and other polluters.

The Supreme Court’s decision will have a significant effect on the United States. S. climate policy, environmental justice, public health, and environmental issues for many years to come, especially in light of Trump’s concurrent assault on the legal system. However, the Uinta Basin Railway is not approved by the ruling. It sends the matter back to the lower court for additional consideration under more constrained circumstances. Before it can be constructed, the railway must first pass additional permits and reviews. It also has to overcome numerous internal obstacles, such as a persistent lack of funding and the departure of the company that was supposed to run the railroad.

The Uinta Basin Railway has a public partner in the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition. Comprising seven Utah counties, it is a separate political subdivision of the state of Utah. The most recent public meeting of the Coalition was held on May 8 at the Carbon County Commission Chambers in remote Price, Utah, and I participated via Zoom.

The meeting was chaired by Board Co-Chair Jack Lytle, who is a perfect match for actor Sam Elliott, who plays The Stranger in The Big Lebowski and other iconic western characters. Lytle is tall, wiry, lanky, and sporting a mustache and a shock of white hair. He even has Elliott’s baritone voice and cowboy drawl.

The intense expectation that a favorable Supreme Court decision was imminent created an almost giddy sense of excitement at the meeting. Executive Director Keith Heaton stated repeatedly that these are very exciting times. However, a more sober realization also emerged that the rail project had essentially stalled while the legal proceedings went on, and that it was now time to move quickly to restart. To finance the rail’s construction, the first step is to obtain federally subsidized tax-exempt bonds.

Utah State Treasurer David Damschen questioned whether the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition’s large appropriations of federal funds were producing tangible benefits for the rural communities it was intended to assist in 2017. The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that the coalition had paid “significant” salaries and fees to board members and consultants, including lawyers and engineers, with little evidence of results. This was the same year that the coalition began exploring the idea of an oil train.

In an attempt to address these same worries, the coalition’s financial advisor, Cody Deeter, stated on May 8 that one advantage of using bonds to finance the Railway is that it gives the coalition “political legitimacy throughout the state to show that you are, in fact, doing what your charter suggested you would do.”. “”.

Over the years, the railway’s cost has skyrocketed. Seventy percent of the $1.04 billion price tag will be covered by federal bonds, and the current price is closer to $3.04 billion.

Tim Stratton, a bond lawyer whose fee is $600 per hour, explained that “the estimated costs on the rail project have changed given the passage of time, supply chain, issues, inflation, those sorts of things.” The developer is now requesting that the coalition “go with a dollar amount of $2.4 billion instead of the original $2 billion” for the bond request. The coalition will essentially zero-out the U.S. if the request is granted. S. The Private Activity Bond program of the Department of Transportation, which was initially allocated $30 billion in 2006, has precisely $2.04 billion remaining.

The anonymous Florida-based private asset manager that owns the Uinta Basin Railway was formerly known as Drexel Hamilton Infrastructure Partners, LP and later as DHIP Group. Today, it operates under the name of Uinta Basin Railway Holdings, LLC, a subsidiary. After Rio Grande Pacific Corporation, a private railroad holding company based in Texas that was supposed to be the rail operator, withdrew from the project in 2023, it is now the only corporate partner.

When the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition presents the bond application to a public meeting in June, the fierce public outcry that greeted the coalition’s bond application two years ago is likely to recur.

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As the senior Utah campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, Deeda Seed has spent the last five years spearheading organizing campaigns against the Uinta Basin Railway.

Seed asks me from her Salt Lake City, Utah, home, “What do we have if we don’t have a healthy environment?”. “From a community and our own point of view, we will not give up on the railway project,” Seed declares.