Supreme Court weighs environmental dispute over Utah oil railway
Source: NBC News
Dec. 10, 2024, 5:00 AM EST
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday will weigh the fate of an 88-mile railroad project that would transport crude oil in Utah as the justices consider a dispute over whether federal officials conducted a stringent enough environmental review before approving it.
The railroad proposed by the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, a group of local counties, would help bring oil from the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah by connecting the area to the national rail network. It is opposed by Eagle County, Colorado, which claims that it will suffer from downstream effects of the railroad, as well as environmental groups.
The federal entity overseeing approval of the project, the Surface Transportation Board (STB), conducted an environmental review and subsequently gave it the green light to commence. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found flaws in the analysis, as well as other parts of the approval process, and in a 2023 ruling sent it back to the agency for further review.
In relation to the environmental study, the court said the board failed to consider broader impacts on vegetation and endangered species, risk of wildfires or effects on water quality under a federal law called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The coalition appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that NEPA does not require such a broad array of "imponderables" to be considered far beyond the location of the project itself.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-weighs-environmental-dispute-utah-oil-railway-rcna183069
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