"A federal court decision delaying the effective date of the EPA’s science transparency rule gives the Biden administration a pathway to unravel it, including the use of the same procedural tool the Trump administration team used to write it, legal scholars say.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Montana said on Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency hadn’t justified its decision to put the rule in effect right after its publication in the Federal Register—instead of after 30 days, as is standard practice. That created an opportunity for the Biden administration to try sweeping the rule into a Jan. 20 memo that pauses all Trump-era rules that hadn’t taken effect by that date, said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy expert with the watchdog group Public Citizen.

The memo tells agencies to consider postponing Trump-era rules for 60 days, and possibly open a 30-day comment period to rethink them."

Stephen Lee reports for Bloomberg Environment January 28, 2021. [2]