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The Supreme Court heard a notable case December 10 that could limit review of a project’s environmental impact under the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA requires federal agencies to consider the reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of a proposed agency act.
During the nearly two-hour oral argument in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, the justices weighed whether an independent federal agency, the Surface Transportation Board, went far enough in assessing the impact that a proposed railway line could have on the environment before approving the project. The 88-mile railway line would connect Utah’s crude oil refineries to national rail networks.
Citing the potentially dramatic increase in trains carrying the oil, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the...