Washington (AP) – The Supreme Court supported a billion dollars Expansion of the oil railroad in Utah Thursday in a decision that reduces a key environmental law and could accelerate development projects across the country.
THE 8-0 comes after a call to the high court of donors of the project, which aims Quadruple oil production In the farm of sandstone and sagebrush.
Environmental groups said the decision would have radical impacts on National Environmental Policy Law Notice. President Donald Trump’s administration has already said that it accelerates this process after the president in January said a “national energy emergency” and has promised to stimulate the development of American oil and gas.
Brett judge Kavanaugh qualified the decision to “correction the course” in an opinion fully joined by four conservative colleagues.
“Congress has not designed NEPA for judges to hamstrings of new infrastructure and construction projects,” he wrote. The three liberal judges agreed that the UTAH project should obtain its approval, but they have taken a narrower path.
The case focuses on the Uinta basin railway, A proposed expansion of 88 miles (142 kilometers) which would connect the region rich in northeastern UTAh to the national rail network, allowing oil and gas producers to access the largest markets. State production of crude oil was estimated at $ 4.1 billion in 2024, according to a report by UTAH Geological Survey, and could increase considerably within the framework of the expansion project.
The judges reversed a Lower justice decision and restored critical approval of federal regulators on the Surface transport panel.
Construction, however, does not seem to be imminent. Project managers must obtain several permits and ensure the necessary funding with private sector partners before being able to innovate, said Uinta Basin Railway spokesperson Melissa Cano.
Environmental groups and a County of Colorado argued that regulators should consider a wide range of potential impacts when they consider new development, such as the increase in forest risk, the effect of additional crude oil production in the region and the increase in refining in the Gulf Coast states.
The judges, however, found that regulators were right to consider the direct effects of the project, rather than the upstream and broader impact. Kavanaugh wrote that the courts should rely on the regulators on “where to trace the line” on the factors to be taken into account. “The purpose of the law is to inform the agency’s decision-making, not to paralyze it,” he said.
The Majority Court Conservative of the Tribunal took action to reduce the power of federal regulators in other cases, in particular, in particular to input the old man of several decades Chevron doctrine This allowed the federal government to more easily define a wide range of regulations.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor said in a competition that the court could simply have paved the way for the approval of railways saying that regulators did not need to consider increased production of fossil combustibles linked to the project.
Judge Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case after having faced calls to withdraw links with Philippe AnschutzA billionaire in Colorado whose ownership of oil wells in the region means that he could benefit from it if the project takes place. Gorsuch, as a lawyer in private practice, had represented Anschutz.
The decision comes after Trump’s wish to stimulate the drilling of American oil and gas and to move away from the former president Joe Biden on climate change. The administration announced last month that it accelerates the environmental examinations of the projects required under the same law at the Center of the UTAH affair, compressing a process which generally takes a year or more in a few weeks.
“The court’s decision gives agencies a green light to ignore the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their decisions and avoid facing them,” said Sambhav Sankar, principal vice-president of programs in Earthjustice.
Wendy Park, a principal lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that opponents would continue to fight the UTAH project. “This disastrous decision to undermine the environmental law of our country in our country means that our air and our water will be more polluted, climate and extinction crises will intensify and that people will be less healthy,” she said.
Utah Spencer Cox governor, a republican, said the decision said a “balanced approach” of environmental surveillance. He praised the expansion of the railroad as a critical infrastructure project which will help “restore the energy independence of America” ​​and strengthen the rural economy of the state.
James Coleman, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Minnesota, said that the decision is an “important correction” which would have judges who rely on federal regulators rather than obliging them to consider the effects upstream and downstream of energy transport projects.
The public partner of the project also applauded the decision. “It represents a turning point for the rural regions of UTAH – providing safer, sustainable and more efficient transport options and opening up new doors for investments and economic stability,” said Keith Heaton, director of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition.
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Schoenbaum reported to Salt Lake City.
