Riot Platforms and Texas Blockchain Council sue DOE/EIA/OMB over emergency crypto-mining electricity survey (Form EIA-862); federal court grants nationwide TRO within 24 hours

Opening

On January 24, 2024, EIA Administrator Joseph DeCarolis asked the Office of Management and Budget for emergency clearance, under the Paperwork Reduction Act’s emergency-approval provisions, to require U.S. cryptocurrency-mining companies to report their electricity consumption monthly. OMB granted the emergency clearance on January 26, 2024 (OMB Control No. 1905-0213), and EIA began collecting data under the new Cryptocurrency Mining Facilities Survey, Form EIA-862. On February 22, 2024, Riot Platforms, Inc. and the Texas Blockchain Council — represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) — sued the Department of Energy, EIA, OMB, DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm, EIA Administrator Joseph DeCarolis, and OMB Director Shalanda Young in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, and moved simultaneously for a temporary restraining order. The court (Judge Alan D. Albright, Waco division) held a TRO hearing the next day, February 23, and granted the TRO the same day, halting the survey nationwide.

What Happened / Key Facts

The survey’s stated purpose: EIA’s February 9, 2024 Federal Register notice — proposing a three-year extension of the same collection — states EIA’s own working estimate that cryptocurrency mining accounts for “as much as 2.3%” of total U.S. electricity consumption (with a lower bound EIA elsewhere cited at 0.6%), and frames the emergency survey as necessary because “the combined effects of increased cryptocurrency mining and stressed electricity systems create heightened uncertainty in electric power markets, which could contribute to public harm during an unexpected event.”

The plaintiffs’ claim: the verified complaint (filed by attorney Mark Siegmund, with NCLA’s Kara Rollins admitted pro hac vice) alleged EIA had not established the statutorily required “public harm” justification for bypassing the Paperwork Reduction Act’s normal notice-and-comment process, calling the emergency survey a case of “sloppy government process, contrived and self-inflicted urgency, and invasive government data collection” that would force mining companies to disclose “sensitive and highly proprietary information.”

The TRO: Judge Albright granted the TRO on February 23, 2024 — one day after the complaint was filed. Per the court’s own minute entry for that hearing, the parties agreed EIA “will take the survey down,” that a notice would state “there are 4 more weeks[’]reprieve,” and that “[a]ny information previously obtained from the survey will be sequestered.” A preliminary-injunction hearing was initially set for February 28, 2024, but was later cancelled as the parties negotiated a final resolution (see 2024-03-01–doe-eia-settle-riot-suit-withdraw-crypto-survey-destroy-data).

Intervention: the Chamber of Digital Commerce was permitted to intervene as an additional plaintiff on March 1, 2024, the same day the case was resolved.

Why This Event Matters

This is the opening move in the sequence that produced the current absence of any authoritative federal dataset on crypto-mining electricity consumption: EIA attempted the only mandatory federal data-collection effort specifically targeting crypto-miner power use, and industry litigation stopped it within a single business day of the TRO motion being filed — before the underlying merits (whether the “public harm” emergency justification was valid) were ever tested at a preliminary-injunction hearing, let alone trial. See 2024-03-01–doe-eia-settle-riot-suit-withdraw-crypto-survey-destroy-data for the March 1, 2024 settlement terms and the-crypto-energy-data-gap for the full synthesis.

Broader Context

Connects to the Texas-level parallel in 2025-08-11–puct-sues-ag-paxton-crypto-mining-data (PUCT’s own suit to keep SB 1929 mining-facility registration data from public release) and to bitcoin-mining-as-electricity-price-floor (the broader price-floor/crowding-out mechanism this data gap prevents from being adjudicated at national scale).

Research Gaps

• Full text of the Feb 23, 2024 TRO order and the underlying declarations (Mancini, DeCarolis) were not retrieved in full — only docket-entry summaries.
• Whether EIA’s internal working papers or draft survey responses (as opposed to respondent-submitted data) were also covered by the “sequester”/“destroy” commitment is not clear from the public docket alone.

Related Entries

• 2024-03-01–doe-eia-settle-riot-suit-withdraw-crypto-survey-destroy-data
• 2025-08-11–puct-sues-ag-paxton-crypto-mining-data
• the-crypto-energy-data-gap
• bitcoin-mining-as-electricity-price-floor
• ercot-miner-curtailment-subsidy
• epic-inv6-energy-systems-convergent-demand-shock