Judge Opposes Biden’s Oil and Gas Leasing Pause in 13 States

A federal judge in Louisiana has restricted the Biden administration’s authority to unilaterally “pause” oil and gas leasing in 13 states, just a day after an appeals court lifted the judge’s nationwide injunction.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the Interior Department violated federal law by effectively cancelling both onshore and offshore leasing on government land in response to a 2021 executive order signed by President Joe Biden instructing the agency to stop those activities pending an extensive evaluation of the federal leasing program itself.

However, the offshore lease sales impacted by this decision are already authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed on Tuesday.

The Mineral Leasing Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act require the government to hold lease sales, but only Congress has the authority to cancel oil and gas leasing, according to Doughty’s memorandum ruling on Thursday.

“Rather than doing a comprehensive review while the scheduled oil and gas lease sales took place, the secretary ‘put the cart before the horse,’” wrote the judge.

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia are among the plaintiffs in Thursday’s ruling

“President Biden’s executive order to choke off energy development didn’t just increase prices and hurt American families – it was flatly illegal,” said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen after the Thursday ruling.

Original source material for this article taken from here