Date: September 4, 2024
Venue: Supreme Court of the United States
Case: Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, No. 23-975
EPSA joined nine other energy organizations in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court to support a challenge to what has become a very expansive approach to the effects assessed by federal agencies in their National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental reviews of new infrastructure projects. In recent years, interpretations of the scope of agency obligations under NEPA have vastly expanded, creating a patchwork of court decisions that offer little clear guidance to federal agencies, creating extreme regulatory uncertainty and litigation risk which in turn cause vast cost increases, development delays, and project cancellation as agencies attempt to bullet proof their NEPA issuances. This is impeding the development of critically needed energy infrastructure at the very time that supply and demand forces threaten the system’s reliability. Thus the amicus brief supports Petitioners Seven County and Uinta Basin Railway arguments to the Court to revert back to the fundamental purpose of NEPA and reaffirm its sensible proximate causation requirement established in Public Citizen (2004).
The amicus parties joining EPSA are Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, INC. (MISO), the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association (LEPA), the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA), the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA), the Center for LNG (CLNG), the American Public Gas Association (APGA), and the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA).
