This story originally appeared on Trains.com.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has recused himself from the pending case involving the Uinta Basin Railway, which is set to be argued before the court next week.
NBC News reports that lawyers involved in the case were informed of the move in a letter sent on Wednesday. The letter from Supreme Court Clerk Scott Harris said the decision was “consistent with the code of conduct” the court adopted last year, with no further explanation.
However, NBC reports some members of Congress and liberal interest groups had requested the move because Gorsuch once represented billionaire Philip Anschutz, who has an interest in the case. As an appeals court judge, Gorsuch usually recused himself from cases involving Anschutz.
Anschutz Exploration Corp., an oil and gas company involved in production in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, has filed an amicus brief in support of the Utah group seeking a decision limiting the scope of environmental reviews.
The case, scheduled to be argued Tuesday, is an appeal by the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition — the government body supporting construction of the 88-mile railway in eastern Utah. The coalition is appealing a lower-court decision that blocked Surface Transportation Board approval of the project. Citing conflicting lower-court decisions, it asks the Supreme Court to determine whether regulatory agencies must consider environmental impacts beyond actions within the agency that has jurisdiction. The STB approval was blocked because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the rail regulators failed to consider all downstream environmental effects of the rail project, including potential harm from oil drilling in the Uinta Basin and from the refining of that oil.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., who wrote a November letter to Gorsuch in which he and 12 other members of Congress sought the justice’s recusal, said in a statement on Wednesday that he applauds Gorsuch for “doing the right and honorable thing.” Johnson also called for passage of a bill he has authored creating an “enforceable ethics code with a mechanism for deciding ethics issues,” saying the system should not have to rely on justices choosing to do the right thing. That bill has been stalled in committee since it was introduced in February 2023.
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