The 8-0 decision comes after an appeal to the high court from backers of the project, which is aimed at quadrupling oil production in the remote area of sandstone and sagebrush.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh referred to the decision as a “course correction" in an opinion fully joined by four conservative colleagues. “Congress did not design NEPA for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects,” he wrote. The three liberals agreed the Utah project should get its approval, but they would have taken a narrower path.
Environmental groups said the decision would have sweeping impacts on National Environmental Policy Act reviews. The Trump administration has already said it's speeding up that process after the president vowed to boost U.S. oil and gas development.
The case centers on the Uinta Basin Railway, a proposed 88-mile expansion that would connect oil and gas producers to the broader rail network and allow them to access larger markets.
Environmental groups and a Colorado county had argued that regulators must consider a broad range of potential impacts when they consider new development, such as increased wildfire risk, the effect of additional crude oil production from the area and increased refining in Gulf Coast states.
The justices, though, found that regulators were right to consider the direct effects of the project, rather than the wider upstream and downstream impact. Kavanaugh wrote that courts should defer to regulators on “where to draw the line” on what factors to take into account. “The goal of the law is to inform agency decision making, not to paralyze it,” he said.
