US energy officials commit to erasing all data collected from survey on crypto mining

Energy officials in the United States have reached a settlement with the Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms, putting an end to their proposed emergency survey targeting crypto miners across the country. In a court filing on March 2, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) agreed to stop collecting information from crypto miners for the survey, which was filed under the name “EIA-862 Emergency Collection Request.” The settlement also requires the deletion of any previously collected data and the discarding of any future data. This settlement effectively cancels the temporary restraining order that was in place until March 8. The court had temporarily suspended the energy regulators from collecting data after the TBC and Riot argued that irreparable harm would occur without a prohibition on further data collection. The plaintiffs claimed that the survey posed potential damages such as non-recoverable compliance costs, the threat of prosecution for non-compliance, and the disclosure of proprietary information. The court considered the EIA’s estimated 30-minute completion time for the survey to be “extremely inaccurate,” a sentiment shared by the TBC and Riot, who stated that compliance has already taken over 40 hours. However, both parties agreed that the EIA can issue a new notice seeking public feedback for two months on the information it is allowed to collect.