Bitcoiners have struck a significant victory in their push to strike down the U.S. Department of Energy’s statistics unit’s “emergency” bitcoin mining order. According to court documents, the Energy Information Administration is dropping its mandatory survey sent to hundreds of miners in favor of the proper notice and comment period required by law. The EIA hastily announced the order in early February, calling the data request a matter of national importance.
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This comes as a response to the lawsuit filed by the Texas Blockchain Council, Riot Platforms, New Civil Liberties Alliance and Chamber of Digital Commerce against the DOE, which in February won a temporary restraining order that limited the government’s ability to collect data. The court overseeing the case wrote that it’s “likely” the justification for the original emergency order request fell “short.”
See also: The U.S. Government Seems to Be Closing in on Bitcoin Mining | Opinion
From the jump, the crypto industry was able to mobilize and call out the shaky justification for the bill. It was a rare moment where, seeing the threat of undue regulatory interference , industry insiders decided to fight back.
For instance, in a CoinDesk op-ed, Lee Bratcher of the Texas Blockchain Council wrote that the data request could easily be politicized and inflame incomplete narratives about how the blockchain industry interacts with the national grid. The New Civil Liberties Alliance said the EIA’s report likely stemmed from “political pressure” rather than a desire to prevent “public harm.”
The EIA is now going to try to get the data — which could be genuinely useful — via means that do not trample on people’s constitutional rights. It will publish a notice in the Federal Register about its proposal and destroy any information already collected, according to court docs.
See also: Texas Blockchain Council President on State of Bitcoin Mining | Video
Notably, the original survey request lacked any information about how the government would protect potentially sensitive corporate information, or whether it would be anonymized if published…
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