An appeals court has sided with backers of a Utah crude oil train that became the centerpiece of a recent Supreme Court battle over the scope of federal climate reviews for major projects.
In a short order Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a motion to require the Surface Transportation Board to further explain its authorization for the rail project — without scrapping the underlying approval.
The three judges overseeing the case — Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins, all Obama appointees — had previously ruled to toss out the board’s authorization of the Uinta Basin Railway for falling short of requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act to study the project’s impacts.
The 88-mile oil railway is designed to carry crude oil out of the Uinta Basin and connect it to the national rail network, where it would travel to Gulf Coast refineries.
