WASHINGTON—The Sierra Club and other environmental groups are asking a federal judge for access to a swath of internal Interior Department documents as they seek to restore offshore oil-drilling safety rules scaled back by the Trump administration.
The dive into the government’s internal deliberations that would likely follow if they prevail could help the groups undo a prized achievement of the Trump administration and overturn the revised drilling rule.
If the lawsuit fails, it would fall to President-elect Joe Biden’s team to begin the long and contentious process of new formal rule-making to reverse the rollback.
Mr. Biden’s transition team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs are seeking the records, including text messages and group chat logs, to show that the Interior Department hasn’t fully disclosed its reasons for the partial rollback of the so-called well-control rule adopted after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers and injured scores of others.
