Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County, Colorado, et al.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently clarified the scope of federal agency review requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”)1 in a case involving environmental challenges to a proposed railway project. The ruling in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (May 29, 2025) clarifies NEPA’s procedural focus, reinforces federal agency discretion, and limits the scope of a federal agency’s environmental impact analysis. This decision will affect environmental litigation and energy infrastructure development, likely making environmental challenges under NEPA more difficult to sustain.
Key Takeaways
- NEPA is procedural, not substantive: The Court emphasized that as a procedural statute, NEPA should not be a roadblock to infrastructure projects;
- Agency decisions are entitled to deference: The Court explained that the “central principle of judicial review in NEPA cases is deference” to agencies; and
- Environmental impact evaluations are limited to the proposed project: The decision limits federal agencies’ evaluations of environmental impacts to those stemming from the proposed project and does not require federal agencies to include other projects even if closely related.
This decision will likely stymie many NEPA challenges—or at least make them more difficult to win—and may result in quicker approval of more infrastructure projects under NEPA.
Background
The case arose from a U.S. Surface Transportation Board (“Board”) decision approving an 88-mile railroad connecting the Uinta Basin, an oil-rich area of Utah, to the national rail network. The project would facilitate the transportation of oil from Utah to refineries in Louisiana and Texas.
In accordance with NEPA, the Board prepared a 3,600-page environmental impact statement (“EIS”) analyzing the project’s potential effects on the environment. The Board’s EIS analyzed significant adverse impacts that the railroad could cause (e.g., disruptions to wetlands and land use) and other impacts (e.g., air pollution). The EIS also mentioned—but did not analyze in detail—impacts that could ensue from other projects facilitated by or associated with this project, such as increased oil drilling in the Uinta Basin and increased oil refining in Louisiana and Texas. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that omission critical and held the EIS was deficient under NEPA.
In an 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit, criticizing the court’s ruling and recalibrating NEPA’s scope. While the majority took a strong stance against the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, the concurrence took a softer, “business-as-usual” approach, emphasizing that NEPA only requires federal agencies to consider those environmental impacts for which they could be responsible.
Court’s Analysis
NEPA’s Role is Procedural
Previous decisions have made clear that NEPA is a purely procedural statute; it requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts of infrastructure projects that are subject to federal involvement or approval, but it does not impose any substantive constraints on their decisions to approve or fund proposed projects. The Court put an even sharper point on this in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, stating that “NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock.” Frustrated with how NEPA has been used by litigants, the Court expanded: “NEPA has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents (who may not always be entirely motivated by concern for the environment) to try to stop or at least slow down new infrastructure and construction projects.” As such, the majority believed a “course correction of sorts is appropriate to bring judicial review under NEPA back in line with the statutory text and common sense.”
In addition to this “course correction,” the Court issued two primary holdings:
Deference to Agencies is Broad
First, “The central principle of judicial review in NEPA cases is deference.” Federal agencies must have substantial discretion to decide how deeply and broadly to analyze environmental impacts and courts’ role in the process is limited to ensuring that those decisions fall “within a broad zone of reasonableness.” Courts should not micromanage the fact-dependent, context-specific choices that federal agencies have to make about the scope of their environmental inquiries under NEPA and the length and details of their EISs. “The ultimate question is not whether an EIS in and of itself is inadequate, but whether the agency’s final decision was reasonable and reasonably explained.”2
Scope of Relevant Environmental Impacts is Limited
Second, the Court explained that NEPA does not require federal agencies to evaluate the effects of related projects even if the proposed project might enable, facilitate, or eventually lead to those projects. Here, this meant that the Board did not need to analyze the environmental impacts from “upstream or downstream projects separate in time or place” from the railroad—such as increased oil drilling or refining enabled by the project. Instead, for such effects to be considered, there must be a “reasonably close causal relationship” or even proximate cause between them and the proposed project; “but for cause” is insufficient. The Court also found important that the Board did not have regulatory authority over the separate (oil refining and drilling) projects that the D.C. Circuit said it should have considered. The concurrence turned on this last point, finding that “NEPA requires consideration of environmental impacts only if such consideration would result in information on which the agency could act.”
Potential Implications
The Supreme Court’s simultaneous broadening of agency discretion and narrowing of relevant environmental considerations under NEPA, combined with its “course correction” focusing on NEPA as primarily procedural, were clearly intended to remove roadblocks for projects that must undergo federal permitting. If the decision operates as intended, it should have the following effects:
- Streamlined Reviews: Agencies’ NEPA reviews—especially for multi-jurisdictional and certain linear projects (such as transmission lines, pipelines, and roads)—should become more streamlined.
- Narrower Basis for Lawsuits: Courts’ ability to weigh in on the appropriate scope of an EIS should become more limited as substantial deference to agency decision-making is required in NEPA cases.
- More Difficult NEPA Challenges: This case will make NEPA challenges more difficult, which will benefit infrastructure developers and other project proponents. For example, this case could limit project opponents’ ability to argue that the effects of various related projects should be considered collectively.
It remains to be seen whether these changes will actually reduce litigation under NEPA and analogous state laws. And it’s important to note that expansion of judicial deference to federal agencies can work both ways: while the Court clearly targeted obstacles to project approval, its emphasis on deference could also undermine court challenges brought by project developers when an agency denies approval under NEPA.
END NOTES
1 NEPA requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental consequences of certain infrastructure projects built, funded, or approved by the federal government.
2 Note that this return to substantial deference is specific to NEPA cases and does not alter the Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises et al. v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, et al., 603 U.S. 369, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024).
