Neepers jeepers

There is an important case in front of the Supreme Court today that could have far reaching implications. 

A lawsuit in front of the court is designed to hamstring NEPA, the environmental regulation that requires among other things, that indirect upstream and downstream affects of development be considered during the planning and approval process.

The National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, was passed in 1969. 

This law requires federal agencies to analyze the environmental effects of major proposed actions before making decisions.

Oral arguments are being made today in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the first major NEPA dispute before the court in 20 years.

In 2004 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an agency only needs to consider effects that have a “reasonably close causal relationship” with the proposed action. The court also explained that where an agency lacks legal authority to prevent a certain effect, the agency cannot be considered legally to have caused that effect. Together, these limitations are known as the NEPA “rule of reason” standard. 

In the 2004 decision Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, the Supreme Court ruled agencies are not obligated to assess effects they lack statutory authority to prevent. In the real world this has been a green light for polluters, and for poor neighborhoods that often bear the brunt of the affects of unbridled development and the pollution it creates.

In this case a coalition of railway project developers including Philip Anschutz want to build an 85-mile rail line in Utah to transport waxy crude oil from wells to the interstate rail network. Anschutz is a former client of Supreme court Justice Neal Gorsuch and he has recused himself from the deliberations.

The developers sought a license from the Surface Transportation Board, an independent federal agency, which prepared an environmental impact statement and ultimately approved the license in 2021.

Officials in another state, Eagle County, Colorado, sued, along with several environmental groups, arguing that the environmental impact statement was defective and failed to address both upstream and downstream action. They won in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The builders of the railway argue the appeals court ruling went beyond what the law requires, ordering a transportation board to consider things like oil and gas drilling and climate change impacts that are beyond their transportation-based purview. The builders say that factoring in things like increased oil drilling along the route and impacts of climate change is illegal.

Even without Gorsuch, my prediction is that the conservative court, which never misses an opportunity to side with a polluter, will neuter NEPA for now and the future. I am not a betting man but I have gotten to know this court. In June SCOTUS blocked the "good neighbor" air pollution rule, allowing states to continue to pollute their neighbors unchallenged and with reckless abandon.

Now the Trump administration wants to build major infrastructure, regardless of the environmental effects. Trump has always paid mere lip service to environmental and pollution concerns, which seem to pose a hindrance to his larger plans.

“They could stop you cold with the environmental impact study stuff,” Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan in late October, referring to NEPA.

In fact, he rolled back or killed over one hundred significant environmental protections in his first term.

Today he offered a further plum (i.e. bribe). President-elect Trump indicated that he’ll give expedited approvals without environmental review to projects that invest at least $1 billion into the U.S. economy.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. 

Give us enough money and we will forget about any pesky environmental regulations. We will grease the skids, environment be damned.

Things don't look real good for our country. 

More pollution, more cancer, dirty water and air, more drilling in National Parks, more sweetheart deals with gross polluters and fossil fuel interests. 

You own this America.