The Supreme Court backed a multibillion-dollar oil railroad expansion in Utah Thursday in a ruling that scales back the use of a key environmental law and could accelerate development projects around the country.The 8-0 decision comes after an appeal to the high court from backers of the project, which is aimed at quadrupling oil production in the remote area of sandstone and sagebrush.Environmental groups said the decision would have sweeping impacts on National Environmental Policy Act reviews. President Donald Trump's administration has already said it's speeding up that process after the president in January declared a 맥스카지노�national energy emergency맥스카지노� and vowed to boost U.S. oil and gas production.Justice Brett Kavanaugh referred to the decision as a 맥스카지노�course correction맥스카지노� in an opinion fully joined by four conservative colleagues.맥스카지노�Congress did not design NEPA for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects,맥스카지노� Kavanaugh wrote. The three liberal justices agreed the Utah project should get its approval, but they would have taken a narrower path.The justices reversed a lower court decision that required a more thorough environmental review and restored an important approval from federal regulators on the Surface Transportation Board.The board맥스카지노�s chair, Patrick Fuchs, said the ruling reigns in the scope of environmental reviews that are 맥스카지노�unnecessarily hindering맥스카지노� infrastructure construction throughout the country.The case centers on the Uinta Basin Railway, a proposed 88-mile (142-kilometer) expansion that would connect the oil-rich region of northeast Utah to the national rail network, allowing oil and gas producers to access larger markets. The state's crude oil production was valued at $4.1 billion in 2024, according to a Utah Geological Survey report, and could increase substantially under the expansion project.Construction, though, does not appear to be imminent. Project leaders must win additional approvals and secure funding from private-sector partners before they can break ground, said Uinta Basin Railway spokesperson Melissa Cano.Environmental groups and a Colorado county had argued that regulators must consider a broad range of potential impacts when they consider new development, such as increased wildfire risk, the effect of additional crude oil production from the area and increased refining in Gulf Coast states.The justices, though, found that regulators were right to consider the direct effects of the project, rather than the wider upstream and downstream impacts. Kavanaugh wrote that courts should defer to regulators on 맥스카지노�where to draw the line맥스카지노� on what factors to take into account. 맥스카지노�The goal of the law is to inform agency decision making, not to paralyze it,맥스카지노� he said.The court맥스카지노�s conservative majority court has taken steps to curtail the power of federal regulators in other cases, however, including striking down the decades-old Chevron doctrine that made it easier for the federal government to set a wide range of regulations.Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a concurrence that the court could have simply cleared the way for the railway approval by saying that regulators did not need to consider increased fossil fuel production tied to the project.Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case after facing calls to step aside over ties to Philip Anschutz, a Colorado billionaire whose ownership of oil wells in the area means he could benefit if the project goes through. Gorsuch, as a lawyer in private practice, had represented Anschutz.The ruling follows Trump맥스카지노�s vow to boost drilling and shift away from former President Joe Biden맥스카지노�s focus on renewable energy to combat climate change. The administration announced last month it맥스카지노�s speeding up environmental reviews of projects required under the same law at the center of the Utah case, compressing a process that typically takes a year or more into just weeks.맥스카지노�The court's decision gives agencies a green light to ignore the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their decisions and avoid confronting them,맥스카지노� said Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president of programs at Earthjustice.Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said opponents would continue to fight the Utah project. 맥스카지노�This disastrous decision to undermine our nation맥스카지노�s bedrock environmental law means our air and water will be more polluted, the climate and extinction crises will intensify, and people will be less healthy," she said.Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said the ruling affirms a 맥스카지노�balanced approach맥스카지노� to environmental oversight. He praised the railroad expansion as a critical infrastructure project that will help 맥스카지노�restore America맥스카지노�s energy independence맥스카지노� and bolster the state's rural economy.The project맥스카지노�s public partner also applauded the ruling. 맥스카지노�It represents a turning point for rural Utah 맥스카지노� bringing safer, sustainable, more efficient transportation options, and opening new doors for investment and economic stability," said Keith Heaton, director of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition.___Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.