SCOTUS Limits Scope of NEPA Reviews, Reinstates Approval of Uinta Basin Railway

At issue was whether the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) was required to assess the potential impacts of increased oil production in Utah’s Uinta Basin and refining activity along the Gulf Coast—activities that could be indirectly stimulated by the proposed rail line. The Court held that such upstream and downstream effects, arising from separate projects, fall outside the required scope of NEPA analysis. These impacts, the Court explained, are too attenuated in both time and geography from the STB’s decision on the rail line. The fact that these activities lie beyond the STB’s regulatory authority further supported the agency’s discretion in declining to include them in its NEPA review.

Key Points
Judicial Deference to Agencies Affirmed. The Court underscored that NEPA is a purely procedural statute intended to inform—not dictate—agency decisions. Courts are to give “substantial deference” to agency judgments on the scope and content of Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), recognizing that these are often fact-intensive, context-specific and policy-laden determinations.

No Conflict with Loper Bright. Although the Court emphasized that courts must give deference to reasonable agency decisions, the Court’s holding does not conflict with its decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overruled deference to agency interpretations of law. By contrast, Seven County addresses agency fact-finding and the exercise of discretion granted by a statute—areas where judicial deference remains appropriate. While interpretations of statutory language are reviewed de novo, without affording deference to agencies, courts are to give deference to reasonably explained factual and policy judgments within any agency’s NEPA authority.

Narrow Scope of NEPA Review Clarified. The decision clarifies that courts reviewing an allegedly deficient EIS are limited to confirming whether the agency considered the relevant environmental consequences and feasible alternatives of the project under review. The Court also stated that even when an EIS is deficient in some way, courts are not required to vacate the agency’s approval of the project absent evidence that the agency would disapprove the project if the deficiency was corrected (i.e., a sort of harmless error standard).

Upstream and Downstream Impacts Outside NEPA’s Reach. The Court held that agencies are not required to analyze the environmental impacts of separate projects that may be indirectly facilitated or influenced by the proposed action—such as increased oil production or refining in this case—particularly where those activities fall outside the agency’s jurisdiction. NEPA review is limited to the proposed federal action and the reasonably foreseeable effects of that particular project, and the statute does not permit courts to delay or block projects based on the potential effects of other developments.

Background
The Uinta Basin Railway, proposed by a coalition of Utah counties, is intended to connect the region’s oil resources to Gulf Coast refineries. The STB approved the project in 2021 following a multiyear NEPA review and issuance of a 3,600-page EIS. Environmental groups and Eagle County, Colorado, challenged the approval, asserting that the EIS failed to adequately analyze the broader climate and ecological impacts of increased oil production in the Uinta Basin and increased refining activities at the Gulf Coast facilities. The STB maintained that those impacts were speculative, geographically and temporally remote, and beyond the scope of its regulatory authority.

The D.C. Circuit agreed with the challengers and vacated both the EIS and the project approval in 2023. The Supreme Court’s ruling reinstates the project and confirms a more constrained framework for NEPA review, holding that agencies are not required to analyze environmental effects of separate downstream or upstream projects simply because they may be indirectly facilitated by the action under consideration. While indirect environmental effects of the project itself may be subject to NEPA if they are closely tied to the proposed action—even if they occur later in time or beyond the project’s immediate footprint—the Court made clear that this obligation does not extend to the environmental consequences of independent projects or actions, particularly those over which the agency has no regulatory authority.

What’s Next
The Seven County decision is poised to limit NEPA litigation going forward. By clarifying that agencies are not required to analyze the environmental impacts of projects that are remote in time, location or regulatory authority, the ruling constrains many of the legal challenges frequently raised by project opponents.

This is particularly impactful for energy, transmission and transportation infrastructure—sectors where approvals are often challenged on the grounds that agencies failed to account for the broader environmental consequences of a project. For these types of developments, which often involve interdependent infrastructure and layered permitting frameworks, the decision may help establish a more predictable permitting environment and clearer boundaries around the scope of NEPA review.

For agencies, the ruling reinforces discretion to define the limits of environmental analysis under NEPA, largely free from judicial second-guessing when declining to speculate about downstream, upstream or otherwise unrelated impacts.

Pillsbury’s Environmental & Natural Resources team continues to monitor developments in NEPA jurisprudence and advises clients on navigating the evolving regulatory landscape to advance complex projects with confidence and efficiency.