The federal district court for the Western District of Louisiana ordered federal defendants to complete the administrative record in a lawsuit brought by states challenging the Biden administration’s pause on new offshore and onshore oil and gas leasing. The court found that the scope of actions challenged by the states included all canceled or postponed lease sales that followed President Biden’s Executive Order 14008, including lease sales scheduled after the date of the complaint. The court ordered the federal defendants to provide all documents and materials directly or indirectly considered by agency decision-makers related to such lease sales, including documents and materials from the White House. In addition, the court required the defendants to provide documents and materials related to environmental groups’ involvement, including correspondence, text messages, phone calls, and other means of communication. The court said review of such items was “important … to determine whether there was improper influence, whether there was collusion, and/or whether the postponement or cancellation of these Lease Sales are pretextual.” The court concluded that ruling on the plaintiff states’ request for extra-record discovery would be premature until the administrative record was completed. The court gave the defendants 45 days to complete the record, and gave the states 30 days after the filing of the record to supplement or amend their motion for extra-record discovery.

Lawsuit challenging pause on new oil and gas leasing on public lands and in offshore waters.

Louisiana v. Biden

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Court Ordered Federal Defendants to Provide White House and Environmental Group Documents for Record in Challenge to Oil and Gas Leasing Pause

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

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A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

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Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

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Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

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A ban is a legal action that prevents the sale or supply of a product or service, or that recalls a product from the market. Examples are bans on SF6, greenwashing, fossil fuel advertisement or single-use plastics.

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

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Electricity generation from devices driven by the movement of salt water, differences in saltwater temperatures, or salinity gradients.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

Court Ordered Federal Defendants to Provide White House and Environmental Group Documents for Record in Challenge to Oil and Gas Leasing Pause

Policy instrument

Renewable energy

Fossil fuel

Economic sector

Finance