Uinta Basin Railway on hold for now

The U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday dealt a major blow to a plan to direct billions of gallons of crude oil from Utah through Colorado by rail.

The proposed Uinta Basin Railway would connect oil fields in Utah with the national rail network, directing billions of gallons of crude oil through Colorado. The railway was proposed by Utah’s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition and would quintuple production in the Uinta Basin, with an estimated 3,300 new oil wells. 

The Court of Appeals agreed with Eagle County, Colorado and several environmental groups that have sued over the plan, overturning federal approval of the proposed railway by citing violations of the National Environmental Policy Act. The judge ruled that the Surface Transportation Board failed to consider downstream impacts along the Colorado River. The appeals court ordered the Surface Transportation Board to redo its environmental review of the project. 

“They cut corners in their environmental analysis of this project particularly as it relates to Colorado and now they have to start over,” Eagle County Attorney Bryan Treu said of the Surface Transportation Board’s three-year study of the railroad. 

Meanwhile, oil production is booming in Utah's Uinta Basin. Utah’s petroleum production is rising to record levels, and employment in Utah's oil and gas industry rose 16 percent between 2021 and 2022. Most of those jobs are in Duchesne and Uinta counties, where 85 percent of Utah’s petroleum production takes place, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. 

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Quote of the day

We see what’s happening with climate change, and how it affects everything else... We’re experiencing a mix of anger and fear, and we’re finally channeling it into hope into the form of collective action.”

—Elise Joshi, 21, executive director of Gen-Z for Change, a progressive advocacy group

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