Others questioned the White House’s insistence that the timing was dictated by court schedules, pointing out that the government had sought extensions to filing deadlines in all three cases, including in September, submitting challenges shortly after the permitting bill was unveiled.
“It strikes me as highly specious,” said Tony Irish, a former interior department attorney and senior counsel at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “That these cases all have deadlines that enabled these filings is highly unlikely.”