The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion for remand without vacatur filed by the applicant and proposed operator for a rail line to transport waxy crude oil from the rural Uinta Basin in Utah to the national rail network. In May 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a portion of the D.C. Circuit’s August 2023 decision that concluded that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) violated NEPA when it approved the rail line. The Supreme Court did not address the D.C. Circuit’s determinations that the STB violated the Endangered Species Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination (ICCT) Act. The applicant and proposed operator argued in their remand motion that the Supreme Court rejected the D.C. Circuit’s primary basis for vacating the STB’s approval and that the other violations “involved nothing more than insufficient or inappropriate explanations,” which would readily be remedied on remand. Environmental petitioners had urged the D.C. Circuit to reaffirm vacatur, arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision did not invalidate the D.C. Circuit’s ruling on certain “downline” effects of the rail line; the environmental petitioners also argued that the ESA violations were serious. Petitioner Eagle County also argued that vacatur was appropriate based on flaws in the STB’s NEPA analysis that the Supreme Court did not address; the County also argued that the ICCT Act violations warranted vacatur.

Challenge to a Surface Transportation Board decision approving construction and operation of an 85-mile rail line in Utah.

Eagle County v. Surface Transportation Board

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Following Supreme Court NEPA Reversal, D.C. Circuit Remanded Utah Rail Line Case to Surface Transportation Board Without Vacatur 

Filed

United States of America

District of Columbia

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Following Supreme Court NEPA Reversal, D.C. Circuit Remanded Utah Rail Line Case to Surface Transportation Board Without Vacatur

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