Overview
On May 29, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a significant decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, 605 U.S. __ (2025), clarifying the scope of judicial deference to agencies’ procedural decisions in cases involving the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), in particular with respect to their discretion in preparing Environmental Impact Statements (EIS). Delivering the opinion of the Court, Justice Kavanaugh emphasized that a substantial-deference standard would provide clarity and predictability across NEPA cases.
What You Need to Know:
- Judicial Deference: The decision reinforces the principle of substantial judicial deference to agency procedural determinations under NEPA, limiting the scope of judicial intervention in agency NEPA decision-making processes.
- Scope of EIS: When preparing an EIS, agencies are not required to evaluate the environmental effects of projects that are separate in time or place from the project under review, unless those effects are directly related to the project at hand. The decision clarifies that NEPA’s procedural requirements do not extend to speculative or attenuated environmental impacts, thereby narrowing the scope of environmental reviews required for project approvals.
- Impact on Infrastructure Projects: The ruling is expected to streamline the approval process for infrastructure projects by reducing the potential for judicial delays based on agency overreach and NEPA challenges. This is particularly relevant for projects involving complex environmental reviews, such as railroads, highways, and energy infrastructure.
Court’s Holding and Reasoning
The Supreme Court, in an 8 to 0 decision, held that the D.C. Circuit failed to afford the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (the “STB”) the substantial judicial deference required in NEPA cases. The Court emphasized that NEPA is a procedural statute that requires agencies to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) but does not dictate specific outcomes or decisions based on the agency’s environmental review. The D.C. Circuit had set aside the STB’s approval of an 88-mile railroad line in Utah’s Uinta Basin, which would connect the oil-rich Uinta Basin with the interstate freight rail network, allowing crude oil to be transported by rail from Utah to the Gulf Coast, because the STB’s EIS “failed” to take a “requisite hard look” at upstream and downstream environmental effects. The Supreme Court vacated the lower court decision and remanded the case back to the D.C. Circuit to reconsider the challenge to the STB’s EIS, with the caveat that the STB need only have addressed the environmental effects of the “project at hand”—in this case, the 88-mile railroad line in Utah’s Uinta Basin—and not the effects of separate upstream or downstream projects, such as oil drilling or refining, that may be foreseeably built in the wake of the project under consideration.
The Court underscored that judicial review in NEPA cases should focus on whether the agency’s decision was reasonable and reasonably explained, rather than micromanaging the agency’s choices. The decision reaffirms that agencies have broad discretion in determining the scope and detail of an EIS, and courts should defer to these agency decisions unless they fall outside a “broad zone of reasonableness.” As Justice Kavanaugh put it, “the central principle of judicial review in NEPA cases is deference.”
The Court reasoned that substantial deference to the agency’s decision-making on NEPA projects would provide “clarity and predictability” in cases involving the American economy, noting in recent years some courts have engaged in overly intrusive review, allowing project opponents to invoke NEPA as a “blunt and haphazard tool” to block or delay projects that otherwise comply with all relevant substantive environmental laws.
Distinction from Loper Bright
The Seven Counties decision is distinct from Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S.369 (2024), which overturned Chevron deference.[1] While Loper Bright addressed the deference given to agency interpretations of statutes, Seven Counties focuses on the deference afforded to agencies’ exercise of statutorily-granted discretion. The Seven Counties decision emphasizes the agency’s discretion in determining the scope of environmental reviews under NEPA (a procedural, rather than substantive statute), whereas Loper Bright dealt with the interpretation of statutory language as a general matter. When reviewing an agency’s discretionary decision, judicial review is conducted under the Administrative Procedure Act’s “arbitrary and capricious” standard: the reviewing court asks not whether it agrees with the agency’s decision, but rather only whether the agency action was reasonable and reasonably explained. The Court in the Seven County case explained that, because an EIS does not require any substantive outcome, the adequacy of the EIS is relevant only to the question of whether the approval of the railroad was reasonably explained. The Court held that it was.
Remaining Question: How Detailed Is “Detailed”?
The Court noted that, while NEPA says that the EIS should be “detailed,” the meaning of “detailed” is a question of law to be decided by a court. The Court declined to provide a generalized definition of “detailed,” explaining instead that the assessment of what facts are relevant to an agency’s decision is case-dependent and better determined by the agency itself. Ultimately, “the question of whether a particular report is detailed enough in a particular case itself requires the exercise of agency discretion—which should not be second-guessed by a court.” Moreover, a court “should not insist on length as a prerequisite for finding an EIS to be detailed.” It remains to be seen whether there is a lower limit to what a court will accept as a “detailed” EIS.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County marks a pivotal moment in the application of NEPA, reinforcing the principle of judicial deference and clarifying the scope of environmental reviews. Depending upon how agencies choose to exercise their discretion, this decision has the potential to speed up the federal approval of infrastructure projects, providing greater certainty and predictability for project developers and regulatory agencies alike.
[1] https://www.saul.com/insights/alert/supreme-court-overrules-40-year-old-chevron-deference-restores-final-statutory
