Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction to 13 states that sued the Biden administration over its leasing pause.
The order applies nationwide, forcing the administration to ultimately proceed with offering new leases to drill on federal lands and offshore waters.
“We appreciate that federal courts have recognized President Biden is completely outside his authority in his attempt to shut down oil and gas leases on federal lands,” stated Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
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The ruling will remain in effect pending appeals to higher courts, the judge noted.
This comes after Biden signed an executive order in January imposing an indefinite pause on issuing new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, a step toward fulfilling a major campaign vow to ban new leases altogether.
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The pause was met with fierce backlash from the fossil fuel industry and states, even Democratic-led ones, that depend on oil and gas production revenue to fund their budgets.
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The pause on new lease sales does not stop companies from obtaining permits to drill and develop oil and gas on existing leases. Interior Department officials have stressed that U.S. companies continue to develop oil and gas on federal lands during the pause on new leasing and that states and the federal government are not losing significant amounts of revenue.
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The Interior Department is expected to release a report later this summer on intentions regarding making the indefinite pause on oil and gas leasing permanent or propose reforms to raise costs and impose stricter regulation on oil and gas development on public lands and waters instead.
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But the Louisiana judge, a Trump appointee, said the states that sued sufficiently proved they are suffering harm from the pause on new leasing.
“Millions and possibly billions of dollars are at stake,” Doughty wrote.
"The judge's order turns a blind eye to runaway climate pollution that's devastating our planet," said Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "We'll keep fighting against the fossil-fuel industry and the politicians that are bought by them.
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Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia are the other plaintiff states.
"This is a victory not only for the rule of law, but also for the thousands of workers who produce affordable energy for Americans," Landry said in a statement issued shortly after the ruling.
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