Supreme Court to hear Uinta Basin Railway case, potentially to reinstate approval
Byron Hetzler/Courtesy photo
On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will consider part of an appellate court decision tossing out the U.S. Surface Transportation Board’s permit for the proposed Uinta Basin Railway, a railroad project that would carry waxy crude oil through Colorado and boost fuel production in eastern Utah.
The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition appealed to the Supreme Court on March 4, 2023.
The case Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, asks “whether the National Environmental Policy Act requires an agency to study environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the action over which the agency has regulatory authority.” The highest court in the United States is deciding whether the Surface Transportation Board was required to consider the potential environmental harm of the waxy crude cargo, when it has no regulatory authority over oil production.
In a decision last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals said that the Surface Transportation Board violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to fully analyze the railway’s potential harm to wildlife, waterways and people. The federal appeals court ruled that the board’s environmental approval was rushed and violated federal law. The decision stripped the railway of the permitting required for its construction.
According to a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, the 88-mile-long railway project is designed to quintuple oil production in Utah’s Uinta Basin and move an estimated 350,000 barrels of crude oil a day through the Colorado Rockies for more than 100 miles before reaching Gulf Coast refineries. The pathway to the coast includes Kremmling, Winter Park and travels through the Gore and Byers canyons.
Support Local Journalism
Currently, commercial trucks are the only method for transporting material in and out of the area.
Residents across the state have been vocal about their concerns about a train carrying waxy crude oil along the Fraser and Colorado River, citing the environmental risk of a derailment.
In 2023, Grand County Commissioners formally opposed the railway unless certain measures ensuring environmental protection were met. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse have both opposed the project, saying that an oil spill in the headwaters of the Colorado River would be catastrophic.
Proponents of the project say that it will attract new business to the region, bring economic uplift and create new jobs. The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition has said that the railway will increases highway safety by reducing dangerous oil tanker trucks. Utah state officials have also supported the project.
If the Supreme Court reverses the previous decision, the railway would still need an additional analysis of oil spill threats to endangered Colorado River fish and increased wildfire risks from oil train accidents, among other factors.
It would also require new approvals from the Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railways, and the U.S. Forest Service, because the railway would be built across 12 miles of roadless national forest lands, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Supreme Court will begin hearing cases in October.
This story is from SkyHiNews.com.
