SCOTUS Limits Environmental Review Of Major Infrastructure Projects
The U.S. Supreme Court issued another major ruling that reins in bureaucratic overreach, narrowing the scope of environmental reviews required for major infrastructure projects. The decision is poised to accelerate long-stalled efforts to build highways, expand airports, and move critical energy projects like pipelines back into motion—a welcome shift after years of regulatory gridlock.
Environmental activists, who have repeatedly turned to the courts to halt infrastructure and energy development, suffered yet another setback at a Supreme Court that has increasingly rejected expansive interpretations of environmental law. Recent decisions protecting property owners from aggressive wetlands regulations and blocking attempts to impose cross-state pollution rules set the stage for this latest rebuke of regulatory excess.
President Donald Trump, who has long argued that America’s environmental review regime became a weapon against economic growth, has pushed aggressively during both of his terms to streamline the process. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), signed more than half a century ago by President Richard Nixon, has transformed over time into a sprawling federal mandate that often delays major projects for years.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the Court’s unanimous opinion—remarkable in its agreement across ideological lines. Both conservative and liberal justices joined without dissent, signaling a shared understanding that the case before them presented straightforward legal issues.
Kavanaugh was blunt in his assessment of the challenge brought by environmental groups opposing an 88-mile railway designed to move waxy crude oil from Utah’s Uinta Basin to national rail networks.
He wrote that the issues were “not close.”
“Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness,” Kavanaugh explained.
“Simply stated, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock,” he added. “The goal of the law is to inform agency decision-making, not to paralyze it.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself, offering no explanation. His withdrawal followed Democratic accusations that Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz—an acquaintance of Gorsuch—held a stake in the railway project. Gorsuch’s silence on the matter leaves the recusal uncontroversial and legally routine.
The Court’s liberal bloc—Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—agreed with the outcome but wrote separately. Sotomayor emphasized a narrower view of federal agencies’ responsibilities, arguing that they should evaluate only the environmental impacts within their specific expertise.
“Under NEPA, agencies must consider the environmental impacts for which their decisions would be responsible,” Sotomayor wrote. “Here, the board correctly determined it would not be responsible for the consequences of oil production upstream or downstream from the railway because it could not lawfully consider those consequences as part of the approval process.”
At the center of the dispute was the Uinta Basin railway, a project intended to give Utah’s oil producers a more efficient way to transport crude to refineries across the country. The Surface Transportation Board (STB) conducted the required environmental review, but environmental groups insisted that the STB should have expanded its analysis to include speculative downstream effects tied to future refining activity.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations backed the STB’s more limited approach, with Biden’s legal team defending the agency’s handling of the review. During his first term, President Trump was sharply critical of NEPA’s evolution into a sprawling paperwork burden.
“These endless delays waste money, keep projects from breaking ground, and deny jobs to our nation’s incredible workers. From day one, my administration has made fixing this regulatory nightmare a top priority,” Trump said in 2020.
Congress followed that lead last year, passing reforms that capped NEPA reviews at 150 pages for most projects. Supporters of the Uinta Basin railway argued that it is simply impractical—if not impossible—for agencies to analyze every hypothetical effect in such a constrained format.
But environmental organizations claim the ruling will encourage agencies to ignore broader consequences of major energy projects. Eagle County, Colorado, and allied groups sued to block the project, warning that limiting environmental reviews could set a national precedent.
“This case is bigger than the Uinta Basin railway,” said Sam Sankar of Earthjustice. “The fossil fuel industry and its allies are making radical arguments that would blind the public to the obvious health consequences of government decisions. The court should stick with settled law instead. If it doesn’t, communities will pay the price.”
The Supreme Court’s decision, however, signals a strong preference for streamlined permitting, predictable rules, and a more restrained role for agencies—reflecting a shift that aligns with President Trump’s ongoing effort to rebuild American infrastructure, enhance energy independence, and roll back the regulatory sprawl that has suffocated development for decades.