Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin miner, joined forces with the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the Texas Blockchain Council (TBC), and Bitcoin miner Texas on Thursday, February 22, to launch legal action against important Biden-Harris administration agencies.
Specifically, the complaint questions the recent actions of the administration to collect comprehensive energy consumption data from the cryptocurrency mining industry and goes after the US Department of Energy (DOE), the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The legal action is a result of an order from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in January that authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to gather data on energy use from eighty-two Bitcoin mining operations, Riot Platforms included. United States Representative Tom Emmer has voiced his support for this action, which has drawn criticism from the plaintiffs who see it as an emergency-driven misuse of authority targeting the cryptocurrency sector.
“Sloppy government procedure, artificial and self-inflicted urgency, and intrusive government data collection” are some of the many things the plaintiffs accuse the government of doing in their complaint. Riot Platforms’ Head of Public Policy, Brian Morgenstern, has spoken out about his position on the issue, saying,
“We are proud of our group’s stance in the face of illegal government intrusion. Extremists staged a false emergency in order to leak Bitcoin miners’ private keys, undermine decentralized assets, and promote a CBDC. If we want to win the next step and the one after that, we have to win this one.”
Claims of overreach and procedural infractions form the backbone of the lawsuit. The plaintiffs contend that the DOE and EIA violated the PRA and the APA by hastily approving and launching the poll without giving the public enough time to review and provide feedback.
Crypto miners are being unfairly burdened by this move, which they argue lacks legal validity and might irreparably hurt their companies by forcing them to share secret energy use data. The following are important aspects of the legal document:
Allegations of a breach of legal procedures state that the approval process for the emergency information collection request (ICR) was arbitrary and unconstitutional since the DOE and EIA did not follow the PRA’s obligations for public notice and discussion.
The plaintiffs contend that the DOE’s reasoning for an emergency data collection does not adequately fulfill the established requirements for such accelerated measures, and they dispute this explanation.
Users Worry That Crypto Miners Will Lose Their Competitive Edge Due to the Emergency ICR’s Mandatory Disclosure of Confidential Company Information.
As a breach of the PRA’s requirements, the document accuses the defendants of failing to provide stakeholders with enough notice or a chance to comment on the request for information gathering.
The plaintiffs are seeking a reversal of the DOE’s emergency approval of the request as well as other legal remedies to halt its execution.
The Bitcoin industry and US regulatory agencies have been in a continuous discussion, and this lawsuit represents a watershed point in that discourse. The industry’s readiness to fight in court to defend its interests is a crucial reflection of this.
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