Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling Inspires Hope For Permitting Reform

It comes as a surprise to many Americans when they learn that the vast majority of decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court are decided unanimously. Far too often, these unanimous decisions receive scant attention in the press due to their lack of controversy.

Such is the case with a key 8-0 decision the Court published May 29 which could help congress and the Trump administration meet their goals to streamline permitting for energy projects in the United States. The decision narrows the scope of application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a law whose environmental review provisions have been systematically used – and often abused - by climate alarm groups and plaintiff lawyers for decades to impede the progress of major projects of all kinds.

The case at hand involves the Uinta Basin Railway Project, which will transport oil produced in Utah’s Uinta Basin and connect it to the national railway network so it reach national markets. Because the rail line would parallel the Colorado River for roughly 100 miles, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in 2023 that the project’s developers would have to conduct a second, expanded environmental impact study under NEPA to try to assess nebulous potential impacts to air quality – often taking place thousands of miles away - or from a possible oil spill, rescinding a key permit that had been issued in 2021 by federal regulators.