On May 29, 2025, the United States Supreme Court unanimously pruned back what they deemed decades-long overgrowth of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Justice Kavanaugh, writing the majority opinion, asserted that NEPA, “a 1970 legislative acorn[,] has grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development ‘under the guise’ of just a little more process.” Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, 605 U.S. 1, 13 (2025).
In Seven County, petitioners challenged the U.S. Surface Transportation Board’s (Board’s) approval of an 88-mile railroad line in the oil-rich Uintas Basis of northeastern Utah. Petitioners alleged the Board’s 3,600 page Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) did not comply with NEPA due to deficiencies in analysis of upstream and downstream environmental effects. The D.C. Circuit agreed and vacated the project approval. Though this ruling was consistent with D.C. Circuit precedent, the Supreme Court granted certiorari and used Seven County as roadmap for future judicial review of NEPA cases. The decision is a paradigm shift away from judicial overreach and towards judicial deference to agency’s discretion and decisionmaking. The goal, as Justice Kavanaugh writes, is to ensure NEPA no longer allows “judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.” Id. at 13.
Specifically, the Seven County decision issued two bright-line rules for NEPA:
- An agency’s environmental review for NEPA purposes need only focus on the project directly in front of them. Review of separate projects, either future projects or projects in a different geographic area, is not required. As applied in Seven County, this principle relieves the Board of any obligation to analyze environmental impacts from oil-drilling which may occur upstream of the railroad project and from downstream effects such as transportation of crude oil to refineries.
- “The bedrock principle of judicial review in NEPA cases can be stated in a word: Deference.” Id. at 15. The opinion elaborates on why judicial deference towards agency discretion and decisionmaking is required by NEPA’s statutory text, precedent, and common-sense. Id. at 12-13. “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.” Id. at 2.
Following Seven County, NEPA challenges will be limited to impacts from “the project at hand – not other future or geographically separate projects that may be built (or expanded)” as a result of the project. Id. at 16. And more importantly, a reviewing court “must be at its ‘most deferential’” when considering an agency’s predictive and scientific judgments. Id. at 10-11.
This decision follows last year’s notable Loper Bright decision (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) 603 U.S. 369), which overturned long-standing deference courts afforded to agencies interpretation of statues under the Chevron Doctrine. Seven County forcibly affirms that courts are to give agencies great deference for fact-based analysis.
As to California law, Seven County’s ruling on up- and down-stream projects is consistent with California case law interpreting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s version of NEPA. For example, in Rodeo Citizens Assn. v. County of Contra Costa (2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 214, the California Court of Appeal held that an EIR for a propane and butane recovery project at an existing refinery was not required to quantify greenhouse gas emissions from downstream uses of the recovered gases because the lead agency has discretion to design the EIR and need only evaluate impacts to the extent reasonably feasible – CEQA does not require an evaluation of speculative impacts, such as the behavior of end users.
California courts have trended to less and less deference to agency decisionmaking, particularly regarding claims that an analysis failed to adequately address an impact, though deference to agency analysis is as fundamental to CEQA as it is to NEPA. (See, e.g., Western States Petroleum Assn. v. Superior Court (1995) 9 Cal.4th 559, 572 (describing that judicial deference to agencies is fundamental to both CEQA and core separation of powers); cf. Pub. Res. Code § 21083.1 (courts may not impose additional procedural or substantive requirements).) This has resulted in the courts hamstringing development throughout the state. However, these same courts have consistently treated judicial interpretation of NEPA as persuasive authority in interpreting CEQA (see, e.g., Friends of College of San Mateo Gardens v. San Mateo County Community College Dist. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 937, 952, fn. 2). As such, perhaps California courts will hear the Supreme Court’s call for deference in Seven County and apply it in future CEQA cases.