Cnn
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The Supreme Court limited Thursday the scope of environmental examinations of Major infrastructure projects In a decision that could accelerate the approvals of highways, airports and pipelines.
THE decision is the latest setback for environmentalists of the Supreme Conservative Court, who have in recent years the regulations intended to protect wetlands, for example, and to reduce air pollution through state lines. President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized the government’s environmental examination process and too heavy.
The national law on environmental policy, signed by President Richard Nixon, is considered one of the fundamental environmental laws formed at the start of the modern environmental movement.
Brett judge Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the Court and there was no state of dissess. In the end, the liberal and conservative judges agreed with the substantive decision.
Kavanaugh wrote that the environmental issue in question in the case – an 88 -mile railway that would transport crude waxy oil from the UTAH basin to existing rail networks – was “not close”.
“The courts should grant substantial deference and should not microchip these agency choices as long as they are in a large area of reasonable character,” wrote Kavanaugh.
“Simply said, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantial road dam,” he added later. “The aim of the law is to inform the agency’s decision -making, not to paralyze it.”
Judge Neil Gorsuch, a curator,recovered from the case. He did not explain his decision to withdraw from the appeal, but this decision reached after the Democrats of Capitol Hill argued that the billionaire of Denver, Philip Anschutz, a long -standing ally of Gorsuch, had a financial interest in the result of the case.
The three liberals of the court – Judges Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – agreed with the outcome of the case but had different reasoning. Writing for the three, Sotomayor said that such environmental journals carried out by federal agencies should be limited to their own expertise. The surface transport council, which carried out the examination in this case, is mainly focused on transport projects, and not on oil refining.
“Under NEPA, agencies must take into account the environmental impacts for which their decisions would be responsible,” wrote Sotomayor. “Here, the board of directors has correctly determined that it would not be responsible for the consequences of oil production upstream or downstream of the railway, because it could not legally consider these consequences as part of the approval process.”
The case was centered on an 88 -thousand railway which would transport crude waxy oil from the UTAH basin to existing rail networks, which facilitates the petroleum and gas industry to move this product to refineries in other parts of the country.
The surface transport council carried out an environmental examination of the railway, as required by the law, but the ecologists said that the examination should have been more extensive and considered the impacts downstream of the railway. In other words, they said that the exam should consider the impact of crude oil refinement.
The Biden administration defended the less robust examination of the federal agency. In this sense, Biden and Trump administrations were aligned.
During his first mandate, Trump frequently criticized environmental studies under NEPA as too bulky and long.
“These endless delays are wasted money, prevent projects from innovating and denying jobs to the incredible workers in our country. From the first day, my administration made the repair of this regulatory nightmare an absolute priority “,”Trump said in the White Housein 2020.
The congress approved the changes to the law last year which, in many cases, require that these examinations be limited to 150 pages – rather than allowing studies to execute thousands of pages. It was an argument that supporters of the railway line raised during the arguments: it is not clear how an agency could consider all the downstream effects in a 150 -page document.
Eagle County, Colorado and several environmental groups continued the review, arguing that the more limited exploration of possible environmental impacts would actually have national importance.
“This affair is larger than the railway from the Uinta basin,” Sam Sankar, vice-president of the Earthjustice programs in December, told CNN in December, which represents some of the complainants. “The fossil fuels industry and its allies make radical arguments that would bring the public to the obvious consequences for the health of government decisions. The court should stick to the law established instead. If not, communities will pay the price. ”
This story has been updated with additional details.