SALT LAKE CITY — In a blow to its efforts to construct a new railroad, on Jan. 17, the U.S. Forest Service withdrew its approval of a right-of-way permit allowing construction of the Uinta Basin Railway through about 12 miles of protected forest in northeastern Utah, the Associated Press reported. The Uinta Basin Rail project is a proposed 85-mile rail line to connect oil and gas producers in rural Utah to the broader rail network. It would allow them to access larger markets and ultimately sell to refineries near the Gulf of Mexico.
The Federal Surface Transportation Board approved construction of the line in December 2021, and the Forest Service approved the permit in July 2022 [see “Forest Service upholds decision on Uintah Basin Railway,” July 8, 2022].
In August 2023, a Federal Appeals Court halted the project pending “a more fulsome explanation for the Board’s conclusion that the Railway’s transportation benefits outweighed the project’s environmental impacts.”
In the August 2023 ruling, the Washington, D.C.-based appeals court decided that the 2021 environmental impact statement and opinion from the STB were rushed and violated federal laws. The court said the board had engaged in a “paltry discussion” of the environmental impact the project could have on the communities and species who would live along the line and “downline” communities along railroads where oil trains would travel.
The Forest Service’s decision to withdraw its approval was based on the appeals court ruling, but Ashley National Forest Supervisor Susan Eickhoff told the AP the agency could issue a new decision if deficiencies in the environmental impact statement are addressed.
This is not another “blow” as the railroad is still being built (even as we speak.) They will just have to detour around this section of forest and/or tunnel a little longer under it. And besides, if Trump (or Haley) wins the presidency this November, all of this political environmental falderal will be eliminated in lieu of more reasonable thinking, at least in my opinion.
Why are we not surprised. Calling our federal government a fiasco would be a compliment. And all of Bidens’ “build back better” projects will get a free pass.
I bet if it was a renewable energy train to a renewable energy mine it would be approved.
Our country and society has become a joke.
Sounds like this decision is going to fall into one of those “Made by Bureaucratic fiat”? It might also mean that it may fall into one of those that might qualify as a Bureaucratic over-reach catagories’ what ius now sceduled to come before SCOTUS for review, as under the”: Cheveron Deference” case involving several cases of EPA ‘overreach of its authority’
See linked @ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/01/chevron-deference-faces-existential-test/
APPARENTLY;l ‘this case for Unitah’s ROW seems to fit ?
Not only the Uinta Basin Railway, but also other renewal of right of ways like Savage Tooele/Union Pacific and others… All held back by so called experts reading boiler plate, one size fits all regulation rather than actually getting out in the field and seeing what is being requested.
Most of the good people commenting on this site are right. None of the great railways built in this country would have ever been built if government then acted like government now, a bunch of lawyers SITTING AROUND making decisions with blinders over their eyes…
First time I read the term “protected forest”. I don’t know what it means. In general national forests are there for the use of timber, grazing, mining and I assume railroads by the thousands of miles. I wasn’t aware that some national forests are “protected”. It actually does make sense, as not all forestland is equal in its quality, some more worthy of preservation than others.
Then again if USDA doesn’t want a railroad we can always build another road and have huge trucks. Just what the enviroment needs.
The California Air Resources Board thinks that trucks are better than railroads. Its plan to make California’s short line railroads ‘green’ is going to put them all out of business, to be replaced by trucks (the Santa Maria RR said its future annual green fees were going to be more than its revenues). Or maybe our governmental and other (e.g. Harvard) elites have all just gone completely out of their minds and no longer think or care about the consequences of their decisions.
Were environmental permits required to build the Transcontinental Railroad?
The transcon would have never been built today.