Law360 Quotes Allison Rumsey on Federal Agencies’ Growing Use of AI in Permitting and Environmental Reviews

Allison Rumsey, co-chair of Arnold & Porter’s Environmental practice group, was recently quoted in the Law360 article, “Feds’ Use Of AI In Permitting, Rulemaking Raises Concerns.” The article examined how federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, and Department of Energy, are beginning to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into permitting, environmental reviews, and other regulatory functions.

Allison noted that AI tools could play a valuable role in consolidating fragmented National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) data and improving the efficiency of environmental impact statement preparation, as environmental impact statements for large projects can take an extraordinarily long time to complete.

At the same time, Allison emphasized that human oversight remains essential to maintaining NEPA’s core purpose. “The point of NEPA is that you take a real hard look at the environmental impacts, and you do some mitigation to try to reduce them,” she said. “If you are turning this into an AI project … and there's not a person, I'm not sure that you are achieving the fundamental goal of looking before you leap.”

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