Partner Ted Boling was quoted in “Lawyers Look to Courts to Resolve Environment Standards ‘Chaos,’ ” an article in Bloomberg Law, regarding the order signed by Deb Haaland, which rolled back Ryan Zinke’s 2017 directive for how the department will comply with the National Environmental Policy Act when considering infrastructure proposals such as wind farms and pipelines.

Haaland’s order says that if there’s an irreconcilable conflict between the 2020 regulations and the department’s own rules, it needs to be elevated to Haaland and to CEQ, said Edward Boling, who served as CEQ associate director for NEPA from 2016 to 2020.

The directive means “let the department and CEQ work out the irreconcilable conflicts,” he said.

One possible conflict is when Interior agencies must evaluate the cumulative impacts of a project, but run into the Trump rule that eliminated that requirement, Ted said.

“That’s the kind of thing that Interior and CEQ are going to have to work out,” he said.