The Supreme Court recently issued a decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, 605 U.S. ___ (2025). The Court held that NEPA requires environmental assessments only of the specific project under review, not of side effects caused by separate actions. It also reaffirmed courts must show strong deference to agency decisions on environmental impact statement scope – clarifying that NEPA is meant to inform decision-makers, not obstruct development.

For certain infrastructure projects that are built, funded, or approved by the federal government, NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare an environmental impact statement, or EIS. The EIS must address the significant environmental effects of a proposed project and identify practical alternatives that could alleviate those effects.

This case involved the construction and operation of an approximately 88-mile railroad line in northeastern Utah. The purpose of the railroad line was to connect Utah’s oil-rich Uinta Basin to the national rail network. The project is said to have significant economic development and create employment opportunities to the isolated area by better connecting the Uinta Basin to the national economy. An EIS was submitted to the U.S. Surface Transportation Board for review and was approved. The Board found the projects economic benefits outweighed its environmental impacts.

Petitions challenging the Board’s action were filed in the D.C. Circuit Court by a Colorado County and several environmental organizations.  The D.C. Circuit Court held that the Board impermissibly limited its analysis of the environmental effects from upstream oil drilling and downstream oil refining projects, concluding that those effects were reasonably foreseeable impacts that the EIS should have analyzed more extensively. Based on the deficiencies of the EIS, the Court of Appeals vacated the EIS and the Board’s final approval order.

The question before the Supreme Court was whether NEPA requires an agency to evaluate environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the action over which the agency has regulatory authority.  The Supreme Court disagreed with the D.C. Circuit Court’s decision on a two-fold basis. First, the Court did not afford the Board the substantial judicial deference required in NEPA cases. Second, the Court incorrectly interpreted NEPA to require the Board to consider the environmental effects of upstream and downstream projects that are separate in time or place form the Uinta Basin Railway.

The results of this decision will be impactful moving forward. The latest ruling marks a significant clarification in how federal agencies will conduct environmental project review under NEPA. The ruling clarifies that federal agencies are no longer required to analyze the environmental impacts of unrelated future activities. This has the potential of expediting projects and enhancing regulatory certainty. The Court clarified that NEPA is not intended as a substantive roadblock to infrastructure projects.