U.S. Supreme Court accepts Utah oil railway case for review

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up an environmental challenge to a proposed bond-financed crude oil-transporting railway in Utah.

The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, a Utah public entity that is spearheading the Uinta Basin Railway project, filed a petition in March asking the high court to review a portion of an August 2023 U.S. Appeals Court ruling that found the Federal Surface Transportation Board , which plans to seek up to $2 billion in private-activity bond authorization from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the project.

“The project team’s hope is that the high court reverses the D.C. Circuit Court ruling for the sake of future infrastructure projects across the country,” Casey Hopes, chair of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, said in a statement. “The (National Environmental Policy Act) process needs to be clarified and solidified.”

The coalition’s petition to the high court was supported by Utah’s attorney general, who filed a friend of the court brief that said the project would boost economic development opportunities in rural northeast Utah, as well as by a Native American tribe and labor and energy groups.

The railway would extend from two terminus points in the Uinta Basin to connect with an existing Union Pacific line, providing a cheaper alternative to trucking for shipping waxy crude oil produced in the basin to Gulf Coast and other refineries.