Supreme Court Reduces Burden of National Environmental Policy Act Review

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In a highly unusual unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on May 29, 2025 that federal agencies are entitled to “substantial judicial deference” with respect to how they review projects subject to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County centered on a rail project intended to facilitate transportation of crude oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision halting the rail project because the U.S. Surface Transportation Board’s environmental impact statement reviewing the project did not fully analyze the potential upstream impacts of increased oil drilling at one end of the rail line project, or the downstream impacts of increased oil refining at the other end of the line. The Seven County decision refocuses onus of NEPA review on the environmental impacts of the project itself, and away from the potentially foreseeable environmental consequences of entirely separate projects that may later result.

NEPA was passed on January 1, 1970 as a procedural statute to insure federal agencies took a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of agency actions which have the potential to adversely impact the environment. Importantly, NEPA does not require agencies to weigh environmental evidence in a particular way or come to any particular conclusion based on the hard look they take. As the Seven County opinion puts it, “[t]he goal of [NEPA] is to inform agency decisionmaking, not to paralyze it.” The decades since NEPA’s passage, however, have seen the law utilized by project opponents to create significant roadblocks to major federal projects, including highway and bridge construction, and many clean energy projects like solar and winds farms and hydroelectric dams.  

The unanimous 8-0 decision (Justice Gorsuch recused himself) is a rarity in recent Supreme Court environmental jurisprudence. The Court’s three liberal justices joined in a concurrence separate from the majority opinion in part to criticize the majority for grounding their decision largely in issues of policy, but ultimately agreed that NEPA was never intended to hold project sponsors responsible even for the reasonably foreseeable downstream environmental consequences brought about by third parties. In the concurring view, the consequences that should be properly considered under NEPA are akin to those which are “proximately caused” by the project, to borrow the familiar tort law doctrine. Moreover, the concurring opinion agreed that agencies are entitled to significant deference in determining which environmental considerations are relevant to its decision whether or not to take a particular action.

The effects of Seven County may not be felt immediately, but it is likely to substantially decrease the time required to get significant federal infrastructure projects and permits from concept to completion.