Late last year, Utah’s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition - backers of the Uinta Basin Railway or UBR - filed a 35-page motion to the Federal Surface Transportation Board, asking the Board to reaffirm its original decision to approve the railway without further environmental review. But, the Center for Biological Diversity is not on board with the idea. The conservation group is a plaintiff in a legal battle against the railway that’s been going on for five years.
In December 2021, four out of five Transportation Board members voted to approve the railway with board chair Marty Oberman casting the sole dissenting vote. He argued that environmental impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from increased crude oil production and risks to water and wildlife outweighed transportation benefits. He also questioned the financial viability of the project.
The U.S. Forest Service approved the 88-mile railroad in 2022 through a roadless area in Utah’s Ashley National Forest to connect the Uinta Basin oil fields to the national rail line near Price. The agency withdrew its approval in January 2024.
Trains would then carry up to 350,000 additional barrels of Utah crude per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast… crossing Colorado and rolling along the Colorado River in the I70 corridor.
The years-long legal battle has involved conservation groups and county and municipal governments throughout Colorado. The case has ping-ponged from one court to another. In August, 2023, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Transportation Board’s original decision. “Conservationists and Eagle County prevailed on a number of claims,” said Ted Zukosky, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Claims about upstream and downstream impacts of the railway as well as a number of claims concerning the impacts to the Colorado River from spills and the Transportation Board's analysis of accidents.”
He told KDNK that plaintiffs had other victories. “We also prevailed on claims involving the Endangered Species Act for failure to address impacts to fish in the river and under the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA),” he explained. “Because the board failed to address the financial status and viability of the railway.”
Not satisfied with the appeals court ruling, UBR backers then took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Zukoski told KDNK that only the upstream and downstream impacts of the proposed UBR were before the Court. “The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition wants to argue that more than that was at stake or more than that was decided,” he said, adding that the plaintiffs’ argued just the opposite. “And, Justice Sotomayor, who wrote the concurring opinion, didn't think more than that was at stake either,” he said.
In May, 2025, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the appeals court. “And the DC circuit decided to remand the case to the Surface Transportation Board for more action,” said Zukoski.
The original Surface Transportation Board decision from back in 2021 still stands, but Zukoski says it’s illegal and the Board has to fix it.
“The Surface Transportation Board and its Office of Environmental Analysis has to address the errors under ICCTA and the Endangered Species Act and also under the [National Environmental Protection Act], we argue,” he explained, adding that the US Fish and Wildlife Service will have to review the STB’s new analysis and maybe issue a new biological opinion for the impacts of the fish. “The extent of that additional analysis is what we're now arguing about in front of the board,” he said.
The Center for Biological Diversity will review the Board’s decision and take it to court if necessary. Even though it’s not back to Square One, Zukoski said, it could start the same legal battle all over again.
In another twist, Florida-based Uinta Basin Railway Holdings has hired Roger Stone, Jr. as lobbyist for the project. Stone was convicted in 2019 of felony charges related to investigations into Russia’s interference with the 2016 election. President Trump pardoned Stone in 2020.
