On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered a halt to the Biden administration’s attempt to ban all future oil and gas leases, marking another major blow to Joe Biden’s radical energy agenda, the Daily Caller reports.
The ruling was made by Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. After a case had been brought forward by multiple attorneys general from Republican states across the country, Judge Doughty granted a preliminary injunction that forbids the Department of Interior from enforcing the lease ban until the case is formally resolved.
In a statement celebrating the ruling, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R-La.) declared it “a victory not only for the rule of law, but also for the thousands of workers who produce affordable energy for all Americans. We appreciate that federal courts have recognized Biden is completely outside his authority in his attempt to shut down oil and gas leases on federal lands.”
Biden had first signed the executive order to ban all oil and gas leases on January 27th. Just one of the historically high number of executive orders that Biden has already signed, the ban was part of Biden’s attempts to tackle so-called “climate change.”
But the ban was sued by 13 state attorneys general in March, including Landry, declaring that the ban violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the Mineral Leasing Act. These laws, which had been passed by Congress, declared that the federal government has a responsibility to achieve energy independence by utilizing American resources by any means necessary. Thus, Biden’s efforts to block further drilling of American resources would make America more dependent on foreign gas and oil.