ELR Citation: 52 ELR 20100
No(s). 21-30505 (5th Cir. Aug 17, 2022)

The Fifth Circuit vacated a district court's issuance of a nationwide preliminary injunction enjoining the Biden Administration from pausing new oil and gas lease sales on federal lands. Thirteen states filed suit against the Administration after the president issued Executive Order No. 14008, challenging a part of the Order that "pause[d] new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters pending completion of a comprehensive review and reconsideration of Federal oil and gas permitting and leasing practices." They moved for a preliminary injunction, which the district court granted. The Administration appealed, arguing the Executive Order was not subject to judicial review. The states countered that the district court enjoined not the Order, but rather "the unwritten but conspicuous nationwide lease-sale 'Pause' as final agency action reviewable under the APA." The appellate court found that it could not ascertain what conduct—an unwritten agency policy, a written policy outside of the Executive Order, or the Executive Order itself—the district court had enjoined, and thus that the injunction lacked the specificity required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(d). It vacated the injunction and remanded to the district court.