A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit partially vacated the U.S. Surface Transportation Board's approvals for the over 80-mile Uinta Basin Railway, which were challenged by environmental groups and Eagle County, Colorado, in 2022.
The challengers claimed that the board pushed approvals through despite it having "dubious" economic benefits, but "certain" environmental impacts – including climate harms from the increased production of oil and risks to endangered fish.
U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, writing for the panel, said the court had found "numerous" violations of the National Environmental Policy Act during the government’s environmental review.
"The deficiencies here are significant," Wilkins wrote, sending the project's approvals back to the board for another look.
A spokesperson for the project – a public-private partnership that includes the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, investor DHIP Group and rail operator Rio Grande Pacific Corp – said developers are "ready, willing and capable of working" with regulators during additional reviews.
Ted Zukoski, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups that challenged the railroad approvals, said a new review could take years.
"The harms here are numerous; they failed to consider fire risk, spill risk, air risks for communities downstream and the carbon bomb that this thing will let go," he said.
The Surface Transportation Board declined to comment.
The railroad would give shippers of crude oil and other commodities an alterative to trucking through the Uinta Basin in eastern Utah.
The government and developers had defended the project in court, arguing the environmental impacts were adequately considered during the review. The developers also said the reviews adequately balanced the project's economic and transportation benefits against potential environmental harms.
The consolidated lead case is Eagle County, Colorado v. Surface Transportation Board, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, case No. 22-1019.
For Eagle County: Nathaniel Hunt, Robert Randall and Christian Alexander of Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell.
For the environmental groups: Wendy Park and Ted Zukoski of the Center for Biological Diversity.
For the U.S.: Barbara Miller of the Surface Transportation Board.
For the developers: Jay Johnson and Kathryn Floyd of Venable.
