Brief filed slamming DoE stunt suddenly deciding there are no LNG pause studies after all
In the latest development involving the LNG “pause” scandal outed by GAO litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, GAO has filed its Reply to the Biden-Harris Department of Energy’s Opposition to GAO’s Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, and Memo in support thereof. With that mouthful out of the way, these excerpts provide the takeaway:
The Government’s initial objective plainly was to postpone release of details until after the information was of its greatest use, i.e., before the upcoming elections.
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The existence of any number of records greater than zero thoroughly undermines the claimed rationale behind a highly controversial action by the Government that a sister district court has already determined was unlawful and has enjoined. The details contained in those records remain critical and the efforts to delay and thereby deny timely release continue. In ECF No. 13, the Government did belatedly acknowledge records exist, which the Government affirmed before this Court at an October 1, 2024 hearing, only to reverse this admission in a recent letter following embarrassing national media coverage. However, the Government did so in a fashion that gives away its game.
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What changed between the Government’s assertions in this Court at ECF No. 13 (September 13, 2024), the October 1, 2024 hearing, and Defendant’s (October 18, 2024) letter and subsequent Motion to Dismiss? Only the Government’s creative interpretation or “understanding” of Plaintiff’s request. ECF No. 22-4; see also discussion, infra. But the Government’s newfound understanding of Plaintiff’s request was not reached in consultation with the Plaintiff. Instead, this new position is borne of the Government’s unilateral convenience which had evolved over weeks to match its litigation strategy: indeed Plaintiff’s counsel expressly objected by email to that interpretation as soon as Plaintiff received the Government’s October 18, 2024 letter. Exhibit A.The Government’s newfound arguments – created solely to support its attempts to dismiss this case on mootness grounds – are so specious that they border on bad faith. After ignoring Plaintiff’s request, followed by procedural maneuvering postponing its obligation to respond to the Plaintiff in this Court, the Government serially delayed any response to Plaintiff’s request, then provided a “final response” to a request Plaintiff never submitted, rewriting the scope of records at issue in an attempt to avoid further political embarrassment and in order to assist pleadings then being drafted. The Government is judicially estopped from changing its position at this late stage of the litigation and in order to engineer a dismissal on mootness grounds.
