内容摘要：Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s family and laity office, speaks during an interview in Rome, July 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia, File)

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s family and laity office, speaks during an interview in Rome, July 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia, File)

A pumpjack dips its head to extract oil in a basin north of Helper, Utah, July 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)A pumpjack dips its head to extract oil in a basin north of Helper, Utah, July 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

referred to the decision as a “course correction” in an opinion fully joined by four conservative colleagues.“Congress did not design NEPA for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects,” Kavanaugh wrote. The three liberal justices agreed the Utah project should get its approval, but they would have taken a narrower path.The justices reversed a

that required a more thorough environmental review and restored an important approval from federal regulators on the Surface Transportation Board.The board’s chair, Patrick Fuchs, said the ruling reigns in the scope of environmental reviews that are “unnecessarily hindering” infrastructure construction throughout the country.

The case centers on the Uinta Basin Railway, a proposed 88-mile (142-kilometer) expansion that would connect the oil-rich region of northeast Utah to the national rail network, allowing oil and gas producers to access larger markets. The state’s crude oil production was valued at $4.1 billion in 2024, according to a Utah Geological Survey report, and could increase substantially under the expansion project.

Construction, though, does not appear to be imminent. Project leaders must win additional approvals and secure funding from private-sector partners before they can break ground, said Uinta Basin Railway spokesperson Melissa Cano., bringing U.S. influence to bear in a minerals trade that has helped fuel conflict that has killed millions for three decades.

Rubio’s participation in the Washington ceremony with his Central African counterparts is an early step in what the Trump administration says is a rebuilding of U.S. foreign policy to focus on transactions of direct financial or strategic benefit to the United States.Congo and Rwanda hope the involvement of the United States — and the incentive of major investment if there’s enough security for U.S. companies to work safely in east Congo — will calm the fighting and militia violence that have defied peacekeeping and negotiation since the mid-1990s.

The risk is that the United States becomes involved in or worsens the militia violence, corruption, exploitation and rights abuses surrounding the mining and trade of east Congo’s riches.“A durable peace ... will open the door for greater U.S. and broader Western investment, which will bring about economic opportunities and prosperity,” Rubio said, adding that it would “advance President Trump’s prosperity agenda for the world.”