Legal practitioners disagree over the legality of the Interior Department approving more oil and gas projects using studies from earlier unrelated projects since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
The practitioners acknowledged that the move is part of the President Donald Trump’s June 4 executive order asking federal agencies to use emergency provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental laws to fast-track infrastructure projects as a response to the pandemic.
A letter, sent to the White House in July and made public Wednesday, was the preamble to a list of 74 projects that Interior identified for ...