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The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the authority of judges to block infrastructure projects due to environmental concerns.
The justices handed down the lone decision Thursday morning, slightly curbing judicial authority at a time when President Donald Trump's administration is loudly complaining about alleged judicial overreach. The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, relates to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the requirement for environmental impact statements (EIS) in infrastructure projects supported by the federal government.
"NEPA does not allow courts, ‘under the guise of judicial review’ of agency compliance with NEPA, to delay or block agency projects based on the environmental effects of other projects separate from the project at hand," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion of the court.
"Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness," the opinion continued.
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The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Kavanaugh went on to state that agencies should not be expected to consider the environmental impact of any project aside from the one they are currently working on, "even if" the environmental impacts "might extend outside the geographical territory of the project or materialize later in time."
"The fact that the project might foreseeably lead to the construction or increased use of a separate project does not mean the agency must consider that separate project’s environmental effects," the court ruled.
Thursday's decision was an 8-0 ruling, with Justice Neil Gorsuch taking no part in the consideration of the case. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett joined with Kavanaugh's opinion.
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Posing for a group photo are, bottom row, from left, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan, and top row, from left, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a separate concurring opinion, onto which joined Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The justice’s decision is based on a project in Utah in which the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC) petitioned the Surface Transportation Board (STB) – which is a federal agency – to build an 88-mile railway to transport crude oil from Utah’s Uinta Basin to a national railway.
When the STZB released an EIS on the railway, opponents of the project in Eagle County, Colorado, argued the federal agency did not consider all the project’s environmental effects, which opponents claimed violated NEPA.
The case was presented to a D.C. Circuit Court, which ultimately ruled STB violated environmental law and that a new, more thorough review be conducted in order for the project to move forward. SCIC petitioned SCOTUS in the case in March 2024.
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Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said she is "deeply concerned" about how the decision could hamper environmental justice and allow oil and gas companies to exploit public lands.
"This decision lays the groundwork for an environmental catastrophe," DeGette said. "As the harsh impacts of the climate crisis increase the vulnerability of the Colorado River, the risk of an oil spill along this train route is unacceptable.
"Increasing fracking levels and transporting them across the country would not only harm the communities through which the train travels, including those in Denver, but it would further devastate the communities surrounding the facilities where this oil would burn."
Trump, having a history in major construction projects, has repeatedly complained about environmental impact statements and the roadblocks they can cause.
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Republicans have also widely criticized what they see as judicial overreach in federal judges unilaterally blocking major aspects of Trump's agenda.
"Universal injunctions are an unconstitutional abuse of judicial power," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital earlier this month.
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"Just this past week, a D.C. district judge issued a universal injunction blocking the president’s executive order requiring voter ID or proof-of-citizenship prior to voting in national election," he continued. "Judges are not policymakers."
The Supreme Court is considering the wide use of universal injunctions in a separate case that will be handed down in the coming weeks.
Fox News Digital's Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.
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