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12/10/2024
The U.S. Supreme Court today will hear oral arguments over whether the Surface Transportation Board properly followed the National Environmental Policy Act when it authorized the proposed 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway.
Proposed by the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, the railroad would help connect Utah's largest oil field to the national rail network, which would carry crude-oil shipments through western Colorado on its way to Gulf Coast refineries. The project is backed by a public-private partnership of industry and seven Utah counties. But environmental groups and Eagle County in Colorado sued to overturn the STB's permit approval of the project.
An appeals court found flaws in the STB's analysis and sent it back to the board for further review. The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition in Utah and the Uinta Basin Railway LLC asked the high court to review part of that 2023 appellate court ruling, which found the STB failed to properly analyze broader aspects of the project’s environmental impact.