Midstream developers have complained for decades that federal courts reviewing agency approvals for their infrastructure projects have cast too wide a net — that is, instead of requiring agencies to simply analyze the specific environmental impacts of the project in question, the courts have been insisting regulators also examine the effects of the upstream and downstream activities the project would enable. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that under the all-important National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, it’s up to regulators to set the boundaries of their environmental review and that courts should defer to their judgment as long as they fall within a “broad zone of reasonableness.”
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The project at the center of the case — formally known as Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado‚ is as quirky as they come in the energy space: A proposal to build an 88-mile short-line railroad in northeastern Utah whose primary purpose would be to transport at least two 110-car unit trains of waxy crude a day from the epicenter of Uinta Basin production to interconnections with two long-haul rail lines. As we’ll get to in a moment, while the high court’s ruling eliminates a major hurdle for the $2-billion-plus Uinta Basin Railway, it remains to be seen whether the project will actually proceed to financing and construction.
What is clear, however, is that the long-running case provided the Supreme Court’s conservative majority an opportunity to further narrow the scope of NEPA by limiting the extent to which federal regulatory agencies need to consider indirect or cumulative environmental impacts. When combined with the changes Congress made to NEPA via its passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, the high court’s new ruling should make the advancement of energy infrastructure projects through the regulatory and legal gauntlet at least a little easier and less time-consuming. For interstate natural gas projects, this means that environmental reviews at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) could be limited to the levels FERC has attempted in the past but were often rebuffed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (aka the DC Circuit Court). It could also avoid the constant permit reversals that were experienced by the developers of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).
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About the song
“Big Deal” was written by Jeffrey Steele and Al Anderson and appears as the 12th song on LeAnn Rimes’s sixth studio album, LeAnn Rimes. Songwriter Jeffrey Steel was formerly with the country-rock group Boy Howdy and Al Anderson was the lead guitarist for NRBQ. Released as the lead single from the album in September 1999, the song went to #6 on the Billboard Top Country Singles chart. Personnel on the record were: LeAnn Rimes (vocals), and Nashville session musicians, including four keyboard players, three guitar players, two steel guitar players, two bass players, two drummers, a vibraphonist, two percussionists, eight backing vocalists, and 25 members of the Nashville String Machine.
The album LeAnn Rime, was recorded in 1999 at Rosewood Studio in Tyler, TX; Sound Kitchen and Mike's Music Room in Franklin, TN, and The Village in Santa Monica, CA. It was produced by Wilbur C. Rimes and LeAnn Rimes. Released in October 1999, it went to #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and #8 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. It has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Two singles were released from the LP.
LeAnn Rimes is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She has released 17 studio albums, a soundtrack album, a live album, eight compilation albums, three EPs and 60 singles and has sold more than 48 million records worldwide. Rimes has won an American Music Award, four ACM Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, a CMA Award, two Grammy Awards and a World Music Award. She has appeared in 12 motion pictures. She continues to record and perform and will be appearing at various venues across the U.S. this summer.
