The Federal Government is urging the Supreme Court to uphold an agency’s decision authorising construction of a rail line in Utah for transporting crude oil. The August 28 filing by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar previews the arguments the Government will make when the court hears the case at a hearing expected in the fall.
The Government argues that a federal appeals court misinterpreted a federal environmental statute, reports The Epoch Times.
85-mile line
In the case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Biden administration is opposing environmentalist groups that are against building an 85-mile rail line to connect the shale oil-rich Uinta Basin region in Utah to the national rail network and out-of-state oil refineries.
The court agreed in June to hear the appeal for the case, but has not yet scheduled oral arguments.
The lead petitioner is a coalition comprised of seven Utah counties. Uinta Basin Railway LLC, the other petitioner, was formed to build the rail line. Eagle County, Colorado, is the lead respondent, and others include the Center for Biological Diversity.
The case goes back to 2020 when the coalition asked the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) to exempt it from formal application requirements for its proposed project involving the construction of a rail line with the primary purpose of transporting crude oil found in the Uinta Basin.
The coalition asked the STB to conditionally approve its exemption petition on the merits of the transportation project subject to the environmental impact process required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Transport board’s stand
By September 2021, the board had issued an environmental impact statement and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had released its biological impact opinion. The STB released its final exemption decision in December 2021, finding that the merits of the transportation project outweighed its environmental effects.
