As Trump presses to roll back regulations across the federal government — formally vowing to dismantle two rules for every new one issued — an article Garland wrote more than three decades ago has emerged as a kind of playbook for those plotting the legal resistance to Trump’s campaign to unwind regulations aimed at protecting the environment, workers’ rights and more.

The 1985 article in the Harvard Law Review, penned as the Reagan administration’s deregulation initiative was gathering steam, emphasized the duties of courts to take a “hard look” at attempts to revoke federal rules. Garland argued that agencies revoking regulations must have at least as good a basis for killing a rule as they did for issuing it — and that the action be consistent with congressional intent.

“The hard look demands that the agency show that the course it chose was reasonable in light of the relevant policies, alternatives, and facts,” Garland wrote.

Another legal expert said there are unmistakable parallels between the Reagan-era deregulation effort Garland helped resist in the courts and the one Trump is embarking upon.