Brief for SCOTUS Railway Case Filed by Forestry, Oil and Natural Gas Associations

DENVER – Today, the American Forestry Resource Council (AFRC) and Western Energy Alliance (Alliance) submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the petitioners in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition and Uinta Basin Railway, LLC v. Eagle County, Colorado et al. Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), led by counsel Ivan London and Grady J. Block, prepared and filed the petition on behalf of the two associations, whose forestry products and oil and natural gas members, respectively, operate on federal lands and are deeply affected by how the federal government conducts National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses and the ways anti-development groups use NEPA litigation to delay or halt projects.
 
For decades, anti-development interests have wielded NEPA as a weapon to cut down responsible resource-management activities that are in the public interest. AFRC and the Alliance have taken part in countless administrative processes and legal challenges on the scope of NEPA reviews for projects ranging from individual oil and gas wells and forest management projects to region-wide plans and programs. Repeatedly, anti-development litigants abuse NEPA. They demand exhaustive analyses of every remote alternative and impact—not to improve agency decision-making, but to stop development. As a result, NEPA reviews now routinely span thousands of pages and require five years or more to complete, only to be challenged in court anyway.

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