The Biden administration is urging the Supreme Court to ignore a plea to curtail the scope of an environmental review for a planned Utah oil railway.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s brief to the high court Monday follows a request from the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, an independent arm of the Utah state government, for the justices to decide whether a National Environmental Policy Act review can include possible effects of a project that an agency does not have direct authority to regulate.
A lower bench “identified several other flaws in the agency’s NEPA analysis that will require a revised environmental impact statement regardless of the outcome of this case,” Prelogar wrote.
The solicitor general’s view of a case can play an important role in determining whether the justices agree to take up a petition. The court only grants approximately 1 percent of petitions it receives.
