Tool Time

Infrastructure gets a big win:

The high court’s decision not only revived a major energy project but also corrected a troubling trend: the misuse of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to obstruct economic development through ever-expanding regulatory demands. The legal battle was years in the making. In 2021, the US Surface Transportation Board (STB) approved the railway, which would serve an area accounting for 85 percent of Utah’s oil and gas production. But in 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocked the project, ruling that its environmental impact statement (EIS) was insufficient. “It is clear that the Board failed to adequately consider the Rail Policies and ‘articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action,’” the court wrote. The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition—a group of eastern Utah counties backing the railway—vowed to appeal. Meanwhile, environmental activists hailed the ruling, calling the project “a financial boondoggle and a climate bomb.” Their celebration, however, was short-lived. Last month, in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the DC appeals court in a ruling that will rein in judicial overreach under NEPA—a law that environmental groups and judicial activists have used not as a constitutional tool for environmental safeguards, but as a means to delay or derail infrastructure and energy projects altogether.

Banning in the name of saving the environment alone isn't good for business...