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WASHINGTON — A proposed western railroad expansion aimed at boosting crude oil production in Utah is coming before the Supreme Court Tuesday in a case that could have wider impact on federal environmental regulation.
The case has been preceded by a recusal by one justice. The ramification of the court's decision could determine how far the government should go in considering potential harm to the environment against the backdrop of climate change.
Only eight of the nine justices will hear the arguments. Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself last week, citing the court's new code of ethics. He didn't offer further explanation, but he was facing calls to step aside over past ties to a Colorado billionaire who could benefit from boosted oil production in the region.
Philip Anschutz isn't a party to the case, but he owns oil wells in the area and his company filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that broader interpretation of the environmental law at the center of the case stymies development.
Gorsuch represented Anschutz before becoming a judge, and recused himself from cases involving him when he sat on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the group Accountable.us, which first called attention to the ties between the two men. A dozen Democratic lawmakers also urged him to step aside from the case in a letter last month.
The case centers on the Uinta Basin Railway, a proposed 88-mile expansion through hills of sandstone and sagebrush. The multibillion-dollar project would connect oil and gas producers to the broader rail network, allowing them to access larger markets and potentially quadrupling production.
The project won approval from regulators on the Surface Transportation Board under the National Environmental Policy Act. But environmental groups and a Colorado county said in a lawsuit that regulators should have considered broader potential environmental impacts, like increased wildfire risk and a potential train derailment that could dump oil into the headwaters of the Colorado River.
A federal appeals court in Washington agreed last year and overturned the approval. Backers of the project appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that regulators should only be considering more direct impacts and the project should get back on track.
The case turns on how federal agencies consider potential harm to the environment when they're deciding whether to approve development projects.
Developers say that process can create years of delay, but environmental groups say it's a key protection for air and water quality.
The Biden administration falls somewhere in the middle. They're defending regulators' decision to approve the Utah project, but say the railway supporters would go too far in limiting the scope of environmental law.
The court's conservative-majority court has taken other steps to curtail the power of federal regulators, including striking down a decades-old decision known as Chevron that made it easier for the federal government to set a wide range of regulations.
