A Supreme Court Decision Important to Wyoming

• Citation: Vol. 48 No. 5 Pg. 34
• Year: 2025
• Pages: 34

A Supreme Court Decision Important to Wyoming No. Vol. 48 5 Pg. 34 Wyoming Bar Journal October, 2025

by John C. Martin

A few months ago, the Supreme Court decided a case that matters to Wyoming. In fact, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County Colo.,^[1] more than any Supreme Court case decided in recent years, will shape future development of natural resources in Wyoming.

In Seven County, the Supreme Court wrestled with the meaning of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a 1970 statute that has vexed agencies and courts for the past five decades. Considered the "cornerstone" of environmental law, NEPA intends to make federal decision-makers think about the environment before they make a decision. If a federal decision will "significantly" affect the environment, agencies must prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) assessing impacts and alternatives to the proposed federal action. NEPA, however, is only what's been called a "procedural" statute: it doesn't dictate a particular decision; the statute only requires that federal agencies consider the environmental consequences of their decisions.

In Wyoming, NEPA has far-reaching effect. Roughly 48 percent of Wyoming's land mass is federal and about 65 percent of the mineral rights are owned by the federal government. Whether it's a mine expansion or a long-term Resource Management Plan, like it or not, the feds make many of the land use decisions in Wyoming and this decision-making must comply with NEPA.

For over five decades, NEPA has contributed to the full employment of lawyers. Literally, thousands of lawsuits have challenged federal decisions on NEPA grounds. Litigants have assailed federal decisions mostly saying that the government's environmental evaluation didn't consider all the environmental impacts or didn't evaluate them in sufficient depth.

Seven County was one such case. There, the federal Surface Transportation Board approved a railway connecting Utah's Uinta Basin to the national railroad grid. The Transportation Board dutifully prepared its Environmental Impact Statement comprised of roughly 3,600 pages of text and appendices that addressed impacts, considered alternative rights-of-way, and proposed various measures to mitigate environmental effects of the railway. Ultimately, the Board settled on a route and approved an 88-mile railway that would transport, among other commodities, crude oil.

When the EIS was challenged, the D.C. Circuit faulted the Transportation Board mostly for its failure to consider (i) impacts from an increase in oil development within the Basin and (ii) the potential for downstream air pollution from refining. Consequently, the Circuit Court vacated the Transportation Board's approval and construction of the rail line was suspended.^[2]

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