U.S. energy officials have come to terms with the Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin mining company, to halt its proposed emergency survey targeting cryptocurrency miners nationwide.
In a filing dated March 2, it was disclosed that the U.S. Department of Energy, along with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has reached an agreement with TBC and Riot to discontinue the collection of information from crypto miners for the proposed three-year emergency survey filed under the “EIA-862 Emergency Collection Request.”
The agreement stipulates that all previously gathered information from crypto miners, which was deemed intrusive by TBC and Riot, will be deleted, and any future data collected will also be discarded.
The settlement effectively terminates the temporary restraining order, which was initially slated to remain in effect until March 8.
Earlier, on Feb. 23, it was reported that the court had temporarily halted the U.S. energy regulators from gathering data while the lawsuit was ongoing.
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This decision followed arguments from TBC and Riot, convincing the judge that irreversible harm would occur without ceasing further data collection.
The plaintiffs contended that the survey could result in non-recoverable compliance costs, a credible threat of prosecution for non-compliance, and the disclosure of proprietary information.
While the EIA estimated that the survey would take approximately 30 minutes to complete, the court deemed this estimation “extremely inaccurate.”
TBC and Riot challenged this estimate, claiming that the compliance cost had already exceeded 40 hours.
However, both parties have consented to allowing the EIA to issue a new notice soliciting public feedback for a period of two months regarding the information it is permitted to collect.
“Defendants agree that EIA will allow for submission of comments for 60 days, beginning on the date of publication of the New Federal Register Notice,” the filing stated.
