By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-0 decision to overturn a lower-court ruling and allow construction of the Uinta Basin Railway to continue, Keith Heaton, director of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss the ruling and its implications for Eastern Utah.
“We’re ecstatic., a lot of people have spent a lot of years working on this. It’s been a lot of persistence, some tremendous partnerships, and a lot of faith and belief in the people here in Eastern Utah and throughout the state,” said Heaton of the emotions felt after the decision was released. “We’re just really excited that we’re one step closer to making this a reality.”
Looking at the next steps, Heaton explained what they might look like,” Hopefully, we don’t have any issues with state approvals. I think we’re in a good place there. With federal approvals, what happens at this point is that the Supreme Court sends this back to the D.C. Circuit Court. And so, that will take 30 days. And then, the D.C. Circuit Court does whatever they do. There’s not necessarily a timeline on that.”
He continued,” But hopefully, at that point, it goes back to the Surface Transportation Board. The Surface Transportation Board is the federal agency that permits the project and is the oversight agency, the cognizant agency for the permits. And so we get working with them, working with the Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Army Corps of Engineers. And at that point, we’re getting out there and doing the preliminary engineering work actually on site.”
In an interim hearing of the Utah State Legislature, Heaton shared that if everything went according to plan, construction would begin in 2026. He laid out what milestones would need to be achieved to accomplish this schedule,” it’s just a matter of getting all the permits reinstated. There’s a little bit more environmental work that needs to be done. Of course, we want to make sure that we’re looking out for the environment and doing everything in a sustainable way … Again, we’re doing everything legally, but we’re doing it as quickly as we can so that we can bring the benefits of a diversified economy to the people in the Uinta Basin and eastern Utah.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh states in the court’s opinion,” Simply stated, NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock. The goal of the law is to inform agency decision-making, not to paralyze it.” Heaton spoke on the case through this new lens,” there’s been a number of actions by different entities at the federal level over the last year or so that I think really put some guardrails up on the National Environmental Protection Act … Special interest groups and nongovernment organizations would use this to delay projects indefinitely. And so I think the Supreme Court recognized that in this case and made it very clear that this is supposed to be guidance to making sure that we’re doing things appropriately, not a way of preventing things from happening. And I think that’s kind of the place that we found ourselves in this country, and that was thwarting development and progress and costing people jobs and communities opportunities.”
Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, Heaton explained that the railway may face other legal challenges. “I hope there aren’t more, but I would be foolish not to expect more. So we would not be surprised if there are more lawsuits.”
He added,” Again, we want to do everything the right way and everything that’s best for the world we live in and our friends and neighbors. And we’re not looking to make any shortcuts with all of this. On the other hand we don’t want to waste time and money and resources and then not get anywhere. So we’ll see what happens with that.”
Heaton has stated that he views this ruling as a “turning point for rural Utah.” When asked, he elaborated on the statement. “In the Uintah Basin specifically, they’ve got serious transportation constraints, and this is something that applies to much of eastern Utah … And it’s hard to do any type of significant industry or manufacturing in an area where you don’t have transportation options. And a railroad provides endless transportation options. So this opens up markets not just locally or nationally but globally. And the people in eastern Utah deserve the same opportunities that people in the rest of the world have. And this railroad provides that.”
Heaton continued,” It’s going to diversify our economy so that we can do things like major manufacturing. And that’s going to create jobs and put the skills that people have developed, that they’ve earned, put to good use. You know, they deserve that. We all deserve that. And so we’re really excited about those opportunities for the people and what this is going to mean.”
In closing, Heaton shared,” I just want to say thank you. So many people have continued to support and express faith in this. And we’re doing it for the people, for the citizens of Utah and for this country. And thank you for your ongoing support. And we appreciate you continuing to work with us as we try to develop major infrastructure that’s going to benefit all of us.”