The Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Bitcoin mining firm Riot Platforms have won a favorable ruling from a United States District Judge in a lawsuit against several United States energy officials.
On February 22, Cointelegraph reported that the TBC and Riot alleged the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (EIA), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and their leadership sought an “invasive” data collection from cryptocurrency miners.
According to a February 23 filing in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, the TBC and Riot convinced the judge that irreversible harm would happen without a temporary restraining order (TRO) against further data collection.
As a result, the court enforced a TRO which prohibits the EIA from requiring crypto miners to respond to the survey, as well as prohibiting the EIA from sharing any data that has already been received from the survey.
“The Court finds that Plaintiffs have shown through a verified complaint and supporting evidence that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result if a TRO is not issued.”
The TBC and Riot argued that the potential damages include non recoverable costs of compliance with the survey, a credible threat of prosecution if they do not comply, and the disclosure of proprietary information requested.
Additionally, there was disagreement over the duration of the survey for miners to complete, with no compensation.
Although the EIA estimated a completion time of approximately 30 minutes, the court deemed this estimation “extremely inaccurate.”
