WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2021) The Biden administration must end its suspension of new oil and gas leases on Federal land and waters, US District Judge Terry Doughty ruled.
"[T]he US Department of the Interior, the United States Bureau of Land Management, the United States Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the United States Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement... are hereby enjoined and restrained from implementing the pause of new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters," Doughty said on Tuesday.
Upon assuming office in January, Biden signed a series of executive orders that directed the Interior Department to halt new natural gas and oil leases on federal lands and waters in an effort to prioritize climate change.
In March, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry filed a lawsuit representing his own state and the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia joined as well.
The suspension will remain in effect until the legal case is resolved, or until otherwise ordered by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit or the US Supreme Court.
