WASHINGTON (AP) — Wearing his gray morning coat and striped trousers, Justice Department lawyer Malcolm Stewart was the very picture of Supreme Court propriety Monday as he sought to placate the frustrated Chief Justice John Roberts. The bounds of lawyerly good sense, however, meant Stewart could not utter these four apt words: “I told you so.”

The issue was a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency dealing with runoff from logging roads. As it happened, the regulation was issued on Friday, less than 72 hours before a Supreme Court argument dealing with the same topic. The regulation probably will keep the court from issuing a meaningful ruling in the dispute between timber interests and environmentalists.