Federal Oil And Gas Leases Can Move Forward After Judge’s Ruling
A federal judge in Louisiana has issued a permanent injunction that would prevent the Biden administration from implementing a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters. (The moratorium did not impact neither existing oil and gas production nor future production on private lands.)
President Joe Biden issued the order in January 2021, and 13 states — Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia — filed a lawsuit challenging the moratorium two months later.
The Louisiana judge said the president’s order violated the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA) and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and that only Congress can enact such a ban on oil and gas leasing.
The ruling came one day after a federal appeals court overturned a previous injunction that had halted the Biden administration’s moratorium on new oil and gas leasing. Click here to read about that decision.