Today at 11:30 a.m. in Waco, Texas, the Texas Blockchain Council and Riot Platforms, Inc., asked U.S. District Judge Alan Albright for a temporary restraining order preventing the Energy Information Administration from enforcing its “emergency” survey. “.
At that hearing, government attorneys offered a voluntary statement from EIA Administrator DeCarolis, offering a four-week pause on enforcement and collection. Judge Albright, recognizing that the Government's offer in this case was little more than an empty promise without some type of enforcement mechanism, ordered the Government to work with the plaintiffs to craft a negotiated order that would fully obligate the Government to:
- Conduct the survey for the agreed period of four weeks;
- Notify anyone who has not yet complied that they do not need to comply at this time; and
- Provide an affirmation that any information that has been received so far, or that is received in the meantime, will be sequestered and not used by the Agency.
Additionally, this order will be nationwide, so all US miners will be covered.
If the Government fails to reach an agreement before 3 pm Central today, the Judge indicated that he would issue a Temporary Restraining Order with the same effect as the previous one, but would accelerate the schedule until the permanent protection hearing.
We'll know more in a few hours when the final order is delivered, but it appears that, at least for now, the EIA has stalled on its (supposedly illegal) “emergency” data collection.
Here is a link to the case files.
UPDATE: The EIA agreed to temporarily suspend its study of miners' energy use.
This is a guest post by Colin Crossman. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
