In 2021, the federal Surface Transportation Board authorized construction of a railway that would connect waxy crude oil in the Uinta Basin in Utah to the national rail network, where the crude oil would continue its journey to specialized refineries. A coalition of environmental groups and Eagle County, Colorado, challenged the decision, arguing that when the Board conducted its environmental analysis, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), it failed to address all of the reasonably foreseeable environmental harms that could result from the project.  

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed, holding that the Board’s environmental review was insufficient under NEPA. The railway company and a group of Utah counties (collectively, “Petitioners”) asked the Supreme Court to review that decision, and the Court agreed to do so. Petitioners asked the Court to hold that NEPA does not require agencies to study environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the action over which the agency has regulatory authority. 

In October 2024, CAC filed an amicus brief in support of the environmental groups and Eagle County urging the Supreme Court to affirm that NEPA requires federal agencies to analyze all the reasonably foreseeable environmental impacts of proposed federal projects like the Uinta Basin railway, including indirect effects. Our brief makes three main points. 

First, our brief describes the regulatory history of NEPA, demonstrating that the Council on Environmental Quality (the agency with authority to issue regulations interpreting NEPA) has interpreted NEPA to require agencies to consider reasonably foreseeable indirect effects since the statute was enacted. This contemporaneous and consistent construction of NEPA is entitled to great weight pursuant to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case that provided guidance to courts about how to interpret statutes administered by agencies. 

Second, federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have also always construed NEPA to require consideration of all reasonably foreseeable indirect effects of major federal infrastructure projects like the Uinta Basin railway. Since the earliest cases interpreting the Act, courts have consistently held that NEPA “plainly contemplates consideration of both the long- and short-range implications to man.”  

Third, Congress recently amended NEPA to codify the requirement that agencies conducting NEPA reviews must study all the reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of proposed projects. In doing so, Congress rejected proposals nearly identical to the one espoused by Petitioners here that would have prohibited agencies from analyzing indirect effects.