Today at 11:30a in Waco, Texas, the Texas Blockchain Council and Riot Platforms, Inc., asked a Federal District Judge Alan Albright for a temporary restraining order blocking the Energy Information Administration from enforcing their “emergency” survey.
At that hearing, the attorneys for the Government offered a voluntary declaration by EIA Administrator DeCarolis, offering a four-week pause on enforcement and collection. Judge Albright, recognizing that the Government’s offer here was little more than an empty promise without some sort of enforcement mechanism, directed the Government to work with the Plaintiffs to craft a negotiated order that would fully bind the Government to:
- Take down the survey for the agreed four-week period;
- Provide notice that anyone who hasn’t yet complied, that they don’t need to comply right now; and
- Provide an affirmation that any information which has been received so far, or which is received in the interim, shall be sequestered and not utilized by the Agency.
Also, this order will be National in scope, so every miner in the US is covered.
If the Government can’t reach an agreement by 3pm Central today, the Judge indicated that he would issue a Temporary Restraining Order with the same effect as the above, but would accelerate the timetable to the permanent injunction hearing.
We’ll know more in a few hours when the final order is entered, but it looks like for now at least, the EIA has been stalled in their (allegedly illegal) “emergency” data collection.
Here is a link to the case files.
UPDATE: The EIA has agreed to temporarily suspend their survey of miner energy use.
This is a guest post by Colin Crossman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.