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E&E News
29-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Supreme Court sets tighter limits on NEPA reviews
The Supreme Court on Thursday placed new limits on environmental reviews for major federal projects such as pipelines and railways. In a unanimous 8-0 ruling, the justices found that a lower court should more narrowly tailor National Environmental Policy Act analyses to focus on effects that are close to projects under review and fall directly under the purview of approving agencies. 'Simply stated, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock. The goal of the law is to inform agency decisionmaking, not to paralyze it,' said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing the opinion for the court, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett. Advertisement Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a separate concurrence with the court's judgment, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself from considering the case. The decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County is expected to have significant implications for how courts handle lawsuits over NEPA reviews, as the Trump administration has vowed to boost fossil fuel development and streamline project permitting. The ruling is a win for the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, an independent arm of the Utah state government, which claimed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had overstepped when it required more NEPA analysis for the 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway. The project is designed to carry crude oil out of the Uinta Basin and connect it to the national railway network, where it would travel to Gulf Coast refineries. The D.C. Circuit ruled in 2023 that the Surface Transportation Board had to go back to work to consider how construction of the rail line could lead to more environmental harm from increased oil drilling and refining. Officials from Eagle County, Colorado, and environmental groups opposed to the Utah rail line had lauded the D.C. Circuit ruling as aligning with NEPA's requirements to consider reasonably foreseeable impacts of new projects.
Bloomberg
16-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Vistra Makes AI Power Bet With $1.9 Billion Gas Deal
Vistra Corp. agreed to buy seven natural gas-fired power plants for $1.9 billion, the latest big US generator betting on the fossil fuel to feed the voracious appetite of artificial intelligence. The acquisition follows NRG Energy Inc. 's announcement Monday that it agreed to pay $12 billion, including debt, for a fleet of gas-fired plants from LS Power Equity Advisors LLC. In January, Constellation Energy Group Inc. said it would spend $16.4 billion for closely-held Calpine Corp., another large US operator of gas-fired plants.
