Wyoming Joins Suit Over Energy Transportation

Wyoming is among twenty-three states asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision that they say is a threat to the energy industry.

They want the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the decision they say is about "federalism and state sovereignty as it is about environmental law."

The case involves a rail line to transport crude oil.

The plan had already been approved by the Surface Transportation Board.

However, the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit halted the project.

The court cited the National Environmental Policy Act saying it failed to;

"quantify reasonably foreseeable upstream and downstream impacts on vegetation and special-status species of increased drilling in the Uinta Basin and increased oil-train traffic along the Union Pacific Line, as well as the effects of oil refining on environmental justice communities the Gulf Coast."

Adding to that was the risk to water.

"This is another example of federal bureaucratic overreach that will harm Louisiana and other States whose economies depend on energy, and all Americans who depend on those products," Murrill said in a news release. "We’ll continue to defend Louisiana and fight the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous energy policies every step of the way."

The brief, filed by the states, says that the lower court decision;

 "undermines the federal and state regulatory schemes that already govern a barrel of Utah oil that may travel to Louisiana. As a result, the decision below threatens the foundation of cooperative federalism on which our environmental law is built.

"And even more fundamentally, the red tape demanded by the D.C. Circuit will only harm states whose economies depend on the energy industry and every American who depends on the products refined by such states."

The state filing the suit are Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.