Businesses of all kinds have, in recent decades, struggled under ever-more onerous environmental review requirements. These requirements can cost millions and take years before even a shovelful of dirt is turned.

That may be changing, thanks to a Supreme Court decision released Thursday.

In a win for business interests that chafe at burdensome environmental studies, the Supreme Court on Thursday gave a boost to a planned 88-mile railroad project that would transport crude oil in Utah.

The court ruled in favor of an alliance of local counties that support the project, called the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, concluding that the federal environmental review process did not have to consider potential broader, indirect impacts.

Part of the argument against the expedited review process came from Eagle County, Colorado. That county’s lawyers argued that the trains moving on the new railway would proceed on a track that runs through the Eagle River valley. Eagle County, once a small-town and rural Colorado community, is now largely a bedroom community for the ski resorts at Vail and Edwards.

The court ruled that consideration of broader downstream impacts of the project were not required under a federal law called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the court, said some federal judges have incorrectly applied NEPA and allowed it to be used as a broad weapon to challenge major development projects.

This case may well set the stage for more such challenges.

The National Environmental Policy Act is a 1970 law that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, states in part:

…requires federal agencies to incorporate environmental considerations in their planning and decision-making through a systematic interdisciplinary approach. Specifically, all federal agencies are to prepare detailed statements assessing the environmental impact of and alternatives to major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. These statements are commonly referred to as Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and Environmental Assessments (EA).

The rail project had initially been green-lighted by the Surface Transportation Board, but the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the approval and ordered further review. The Supreme Court’s Thursday decision will put the project back on track, as it were.

Groups contesting all manner of infrastructure projects have used the environmental review process and challenges to any approval to try to block development. This has been going on since NEPA was passed in 1970.  The Supreme Court may have set a precedent here in requiring only an assessment of direct environmental impacts, not “downstream” effects that could be expanded beyond all reason or rationale.