Case Info: Seven County Coalition v. Eagle County | Case No. 23-975 | Date Argued: 12/10/24

Link to Docket: Here.

Background:

In Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, 541 U.S. 752, 770 (2004), this Court held that when an agency cannot prevent an environmental effect "due to its limited statutory authority over the relevant actions," the National Environmental Policy Act does not require it to study that effect. This holding has divided the courts of appeals. Five circuits read Public Citizen to mean that an agency's environmental review can stop where its regulatory authority stops. Two circuits disagree and require review of any impact that can be called reasonably foreseeable.

Here, the Surface Transportation Board relied on Public Citizen to cabin its environmental review of a new rail line in Utah. But the D.C. Circuit rejected that approach, ruling that the Board "cannot avoid" environmental review "on the ground that it lacks authority to prevent, control, or mitigate" distant environmental effects. As a result, it ordered the Board to study the local effects of oil wells and refineries that lie outside the Board's regulatory authority.

Question Presented: Whether the National Environmental Policy Act requires an agency to study environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the action over which the agency has regulatory authority.

Holding: The D.C. Circuit failed to afford the Board the substantial judicial deference required in NEPA cases and incorrectly interpreted NEPA to require the Board to consider the environmental effects of upstream and downstream projects that are separate in time or place from the Uinta Basin Railway.

Result: Reversed and remanded.

Voting Breakdown: 8-0. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito and Barrett joined. Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined. Justice Gorsuch took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Link to Opinion: Here.

Oral Advocates:

• For petitioners: Paul D. Clement, Alexandria, Va.
• For federal respondents supporting petitioners: Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
• For respondents Eagle County, et al.: William M. Jay, Washington, D.C.

Website Link to Opinion Summary: Here.

Apple Podcast Link to Opinion Summary: Here.