The Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of environmental review under one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws.
In an 8-0 ruling on Thursday, the high court determined that reviews conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) do not need to consider certain upstream or downstream impacts of an infrastructure project.
NEPA requires the government to consider the proposed impacts of various infrastructure projects. At issue in the case was a federal government’s assessment of a proposed railway line to ship oil in Utah.
A lower court ruled the government’s review was inadequate because it did not fully consider the impacts of increased oil production and refining that could occur as a result of the railway project. The majority opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, disagreed.
“When the effects of an agency action arise from a separate project—for example, a possible future project or one that is geographically distinct from the project at hand—NEPA does not require the agency to evaluate the effects of that separate project,” he wrote.
Kavanaugh was joined by Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a separate, concurring opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself from the case.
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