A similar thing happened last August, when the Biden administration announced it had agreed to exclude 6 million acres of the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico seabed from exploration to settle a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club - an announcement that triggered operational delays for the industry and expensive litigation to overturn.
It is most prevalent in the environmental field, where well-funded groups commonly sue the Environmental Protection Agency or the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior alleging failure to enforce provisions of the Clean Air Act or regulations regarding federal leases for energy production.
These like-minded players approach the issue seeking similar goals, a process that has only intensified with the Biden administration and leftist environmental groups sharing the belief that global warming is an existential threat.
So the BLM and the states agreed to re-do studies under the National Environmental Policy Act, and, after concluding that the leases complied with the law, the Trump administration-led agency approved the leases again.
One sign of how the practice has taken off under the Biden administration is the explosion in plaintiffs' legal fees as part of settlements - meaning taxpayers foot the bill for environmental lawsuits.
"The practice did not stop under the Trump administration, nor did it resume under the Biden administration," he said.
There is an historical irony in that the germ of sue-and-settle tactics came under Richard Nixon when advocacy groups were warning of "Agency capture," meaning the companies that various federal agencies regulate had allegedly come to control the bureaucrats charged with crafting policy.
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