Supreme Court Decides Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County

On May 29, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, No. 23-975, holding that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) affords agencies substantial deference when evaluating the environmental effects of a proposed project and does not require agencies to assess the effects of separate projects to which the proposed project might lead.

For certain infrastructure projects that are built, funded, or approved by the Federal Government, NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS). NEPA is a purely procedural statute in that it requires an agency to prepare a report on the environmental consequences of a “proposed action,” as well as feasible alternatives, but does not itself require the agency to weigh environmental consequences in any particular way.

In this case, seven Utah counties asked the U. S. Surface Transportation Board to approve a railroad project. The proposed railroad would connect Utah’s oil-rich Uinta Basin to the national rail network. The Board prepared a 3,600-page EIS and ultimately approved the project. The Board’s EIS analyzed the effects of the railroad’s construction and operation, including disruptions to local wetlands, land use, and recreation. It also noted that approving the railroad might increase upstream oil drilling in the Uinta Basin and downstream refining of crude oil in other parts of the country, but it did not fully analyze the environmental effects of those activities.

The D.C. Circuit vacated the Board’s EIS and its approval of the railroad. It concluded that the Board failed to take “the requisite ‘hard look’ at all of the environmental impacts of the Railway.” Specifically, it held that the Board should have fully analyzed the effects of increased oil drilling and refining, as “reasonably foreseeably impacts” of the railroad.

The Supreme Court reversed. It held that because NEPA is a purely procedural statute that does not require any particular outcome, courts should afford agencies “substantial deference” as to the scope and contents of an EIS. The Court also held that NEPA requires agencies to focus on the “proposed action” when preparing an EIS. Thus, agencies need not assess the environmental effects of other future or geographically separate projects that may be built as a result of the immediate project under consideration. The Board therefore did not need to assess the environmental effects of projects the railroad might foreseeably promote, such as drilling or refining, which fall under the regulatory authority of other agencies.

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett joined. Justice Alito joined the opinion in part. Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined. Justice Gorsuch took no part in the case.