Judge rules Biden's gas and oil order violated the law and issues permanent injunction in states that sued

A federal judge on Thursday disagreed with alleged President Biden's order that banned new gas and oil leases on federal lands and issued a permanent injunction opposing it.

Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana made the ruling just one day after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals kicked back to him the injunction he had issued last year to accomplish the same goal, as reported by The Hill. The ruling permanently blocks Biden's January 2021 executive order that halted lease sales on federal lands.

The order applies [alphabetically] to Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia, which sued the brain addled Biden.

Doughty, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled that Biden’s January 2021 order violated the Mineral Leasing Act and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act by leaving Congress out of the loop. But that's what dictators often do, and this administration is no exception.

“Both statutes require Government Defendants’ agencies to sell oil and gas leases. The OCSLA has a Five-Year Plan in effect that requires eligible leases to be sold. Government Defendants’ agencies have no authority to make significant revisions in the OCSLA Five-Year Plan without going through the procedure mandated by Congress,” Doughty wrote. 

“The MLA requires the [Interior Department] to hold lease sales, where eligible lands are available at lease quarterly. By stopping the process, the agencies are in effect amending two Congressional statutes. Neither the OCSLA nor the MLA gives the Government Defendants’ agencies the authority to implement a Stop of lease sales,” the judge ruled.

As noted on jurist.org, the appellate court ruling said the initial injunction did not comply with rules requiring very specific terms and reasons for an injunction.

As such, the case was sent back to Doughty on that technicality and Biden symbolically received a bilateral orchiectomy. 

We shall see how this plays out but for now, the Biden administration must reinstate $192,000,000 in leases for the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, the law requires two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska before October 2023.

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The law also links renewable energy leases from wind or solar projects to a requirement that the Department of Interior offer oil and gas leases for a minimum of 60 million offshore acres and 2 million onshore acres, just in case the wind dies down and clouds cover the sun--like what are the chances of that?

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