WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has turned down a suit by a group of Chicago suburbs seeking review of the Surface Transportation Board decision approving the Canadian Pacific Kansas City merger.
In a decision announced today (June 20, 2025), the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia District denied the request by the Coalition to Stop CPKC to review the decision, saying the board “thoroughly considered the merger’s potential environmental harms and reasonably concluded the merger was in the public interest.”
The coalition — consisting of DuPage County, Ill., and the communities of Bartlett, Bensenville, Elgin, Itasca, Hanover Park, Roselle, and Wood Dale — had organized shortly after the merger was proposed, expressing concerns about traffic and safety impacts. At one time, the communities sought up to $9.5 billion in mitigation, such as grade crossing separation projects and reconstruction of infrastructure in Elgin [see “Chicago suburbs seek …,” Trains News Wire, March 1, 2022].
The group filed suit seeking a review of the STB decision shortly after approval of the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger in March 2023. The group argued the board’s decision was arbitrary and capricious — which would qualify as grounds for review — because it had failed to adequately address the environmental impacts of the merger, and inadequately explained the public-interest reasoning of its decision. They had sought another environmental impact statement specifically addressing impacts in the Chicago area, as well as stronger mitigation requirements [see “Chicago suburbs sue …,” News Wire, May 12, 2023].
But in its per curiam decision, the three-judge panel writes that “the Board did a commendable job of addressing each of the Coalition’s and other stakeholders’ many comments. The Coalition may disagree with some of the Board’s judgments, but it is not our role to second-guess the Board’s reasonably explained choices.”
Notably, one of the precedents cited by the decision is the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Uinta Basin Railway case [see “Supreme Court rules in favor …,” News Wire, May 29, 2025]. The judges note that decision directs the court to “afford substantial deference to the agency” and to “not micromanage the agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness.”
The three-judge panel — Karen LeCraft Henderson; appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1990; Neomi Rao, appointed by Donald Trump in 2019; and Bradley N. Garcia, appointed by Joe Biden in 2023 — said it would not publish a full opinion, which indicates the court did not consider the matter to require a more complete explanation.
Trains News Wire has emailed a request for comment to both the Coalition and the STB.
I totally agree with you Charles. Do not buy a house even remotely close to the tracks if you don’t like trains. I will also add people buy houses in flight paths to airports then complain about the noise. Again if you don’t like airport noise, do not buy a house even close to the flight path.
If they don’t like trains they shouldn’t buy a house near a railroad. Their responsibility.
I don’t care if it was poor minorities in Cleveland (at the time of the Conrail breakup to CSX and NS) or rich white people in the Chicago suburbs. Two sides of the same coin.