In a recent court filing, a temporary restraining order was issued to «maintain the current state of affairs» and will remain in effect until before March 25th. The Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Riot, a Bitcoin mining firm, have successfully obtained a favorable ruling from a United States District Judge in their lawsuit against several US energy officials.
As reported on February 22 by Cointelegraph, the TBC and Riot alleged that the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (EIA), and Office of Management and Budget (OMB), along with their leadership, were seeking extensive data collection from cryptocurrency miners.
According to a filing on February 23 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, the TBC and Riot persuaded the judge that without a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt further data collection, irreparable harm would occur.
Consequently, the court issued a TRO preventing the EIA from mandating responses to the survey by crypto miners and from disclosing any received data from the survey.
The TBC and Riot argued that potential damages included unrecoverable compliance costs, a credible threat of prosecution for non-compliance, and the disclosure of proprietary information requested.
Furthermore, there was disagreement regarding the survey’s duration for miners to complete, with no compensation provided.
Although the EIA estimated a completion time of around 30 minutes, the court deemed this estimate «extremely inaccurate.»
Meanwhile, the TBC and Riot contested the estimate, stating that compliance costs had already exceeded 40 hours.
Based on the evidence presented, the court found it likely that TBC and Riot would prevail in the lawsuit. Additionally, it determined that the EIA had abused its authority in approving the emergency survey, a decision the court deemed «far from justifiable.»
The filing also noted that the TRO would expire before March 25th, with its purpose during the 4-week period being to «maintain the current state of affairs.