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'This Is a Push to Pass Laws Criminalizing Protest of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure' Janine Jackson ([link removed])


Janine Jackson interviewed ExxonKnews' Emily Sanders about criminalizing pipeline protests for the August 16, 2024, episode ([link removed]) of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

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FAIR.org (11/22/16 ([link removed]) )

Janine Jackson: We have not forgotten the years of protest ([link removed]) by the people of Standing Rock ([link removed]) in resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline ([link removed]) . The cause could not have been more fundamental. The news and images were dramatic, and the support was global and cross-community.

Fossil fuel makers, who would like to keep making money from the destruction of the planet's capacity for life, along with their ally enablers in law and law enforcement, want nothing like that to ever happen again, and certainly not for you to see it and take inspiration.

Pursuant to that are new efforts reported by our guest.

Emily Sanders ([link removed]) is senior reporter for ExxonKnews ([link removed]) , a project of the Center for Climate Integrity. This story was co-published ([link removed]) with the Lever. She joins us now by phone from Queens. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Emily Sanders.

Emily Sanders: Hi. Thanks so much for having me again.

JJ We're talking, to start, about congressional actions. What is the context behind this new rulemaking authorization process that you're writing ([link removed]) about, and how did laws around pipeline protest get into this conversation?
HuffPost: The Gassing Of Satartia

HuffPost (8/26/21 ([link removed]) )

ES: Congress is currently working to reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, which would set the agency's funding and mandates for safety rulemaking on pipelines over the next few years. And that's at the same time as the agency sets out to make new rules for carbon dioxide pipelines.

And both these processes are especially crucial right now, as the oil and gas industry plans to build out tens of thousands of additional miles of pipeline for carbon capture projects. And CO2 is an asphyxiant. It can travel long distances, it can shut down vehicles, and sicken, suffocate or even kill people and wildlife.

So these pipelines can be incredibly dangerous if and when they leak, as was the case in Satartia, Mississippi, in 2020, when a Denbury pipeline, now owned by ExxonMobil, ruptured ([link removed]) and stalled emergency vehicles, sent nearly 50 people to the hospital with reportedly zombie-like symptoms.

So, after that, and now in the wake of yet another leak ([link removed]) in Sulphur, Louisiana, earlier this year, advocates and community members have really been pushing the agency to take a hard look at these pipelines, and provide more transparent information to communities and first responders, who are often just underfunded, or volunteer fire departments tasked with dealing with these leaks at the last minute. And they're asking the agency to implement real rules and oversight for the companies that, in these cases of leaks, were not appropriately monitoring ([link removed]) their sites.

So back in April, I reported ([link removed]) on how the oil industry was lobbying to limit the scope of those rules, and dictate its own safety standards, so that it can build out CO2 pipeline infrastructure as quickly as possible, since it stands to benefit from huge tax incentives for CCS ([link removed]) passed under the Biden administration.
Emily Sanders of the Center for Climate Integrity

Emily Sanders: "This rulemaking process is supposed to be about protecting community members and making sure pipelines are safe, not about preventing protests."

And what I found, as I dug further into those lobbying records, is that oil companies and their trade groups are now trying to pressure lawmakers to use this PHMSA reauthorization process to push through measures that could further criminalize pipeline protests at the federal level.

The federal penalty for damaging or destroying pipelines is already a felony charge of up to 20 years in prison. But in hearing testimony that I found, and policy briefs posted online, oil industry trade group executives were basically pushing lawmakers to expand the definition ([link removed]) of so-called “attacks” on pipelines that can be punished under felony charges to include vague language like "disruptions of service" or "attacks on construction sites."

And that could implicate a much broader set of activities that are used to protest fossil fuel infrastructure. So something like "disruption of service," or interfering at a construction site, that could implicate anything from planting corn in the path of a pipeline construction, to a march, or a sit-in at a site. And it's really hard to say what that actually means, which is why it's so concerning.

And we're now already seeing this language show up in committee bills. So the House Energy and Commerce Committee's draft reauthorization bill ([link removed]) , which was one of two committee bills being negotiated before the legislation goes to the Senate, would add impairing the operation of pipelines, damaging or destroying such a facility under construction, and even attempting or conspiring to do so as felony activities punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

So this is something industry lobby groups have tried before, back in 2019, to use this reauthorization process towards this purpose. They say it's about preventing damage or destruction of pipelines that could create a harmful situation for communities on the ground. But, again, that's already a felony under federal law. This rulemaking process is supposed to be about protecting community members and making sure pipelines are safe, not about preventing protests.

JJ: Well, you've hit all the points, but let me just draw some out, because the perversity here—it's not irony—this is coming at the center of legislative work about rules for industry due to devastating harms, like breaches in a carbon dioxide pipeline, things that have actively harmed the community.

So in the process of legislating rules around that, fossil fuel makers have said, “Oh, well, while we're talking about safety of pipelines, let's also wiggle in this idea that protesters might be endangering pipelines.”

And then here's where it gets to peak irony, the idea that protesters might cause harm to human beings by protesting pipelines, when the context is we're talking about the harm that these pipelines themselves have caused. I mean, it's kind of off the chart.

ES: Exactly. And this is as these same companies are continuing to invest in more and more fossil fuel infrastructure, while every scientific body is telling us that we have to do the opposite to avoid cataclysmic climate impacts. So they're really using this growing pushback against their own operations to take this opportunity to silence that opposition.

JJ: And then, of course, the vagueness of the language, which you point to in the piece, that is part of it, that you're not supposed to quite understand, well, what counts as "protest," what counts as "impairing the operation" of the pipeline. It's very much suppressive of free speech and action.
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Extra! (4/13 ([link removed]) )

ES: Exactly. There's precedent for this, as you alluded to in your opening; this is part of a larger push to pass laws criminalizing protest of fossil fuel infrastructure since the protest against Keystone XL ([link removed]) and Dakota Access, which brought together enormous coalitions of people that cross cultural and political boundaries to oppose those pipelines.

And much of the legislation we've seen since then, which has been lobbied for by companies like Exxon and Marathon, Koch and Enbridge—much of that legislation was primarily based on a model bill crafted by the oil- and gas-funded American Legislative and Exchange Council, or ALEC ([link removed]) , which made it a felony to trespass on the industry's so-called critical infrastructure.

And those critical infrastructure bills use a lot of the same, very vague types of language to describe trespass, which can make it incredibly dangerous, not just for protesters, many of whom are Indigenous people and farmers and other landowners just trying to protect their land and water rights, but also journalists and the press, who go to report on these protests on the ground. And, again, it's just especially concerning when the cost to the planet and people's safety are so high.

JJ: I just want to ask, finally, it's kind of open-ended, but I mean, it's just not plausible to think that people are going to stop resisting or stop protesting or stop speaking out against the harms climate disruption is inflicting, that are evident much more every single day. And I just wonder—obviously, these fossil fuel companies are hoping that news media will use their age-old frames about criminality and law-breaking to push people back into the idea of, “Oh, it's OK to want what you want"—like, not to see the capacity for human life on the planet destroyed—"it's OK for you to want that, but just do it through proper channels. Don't do it by protesting, because now that's illegal in a new way.” And I just wonder, media have to do something different, big media have to do something different to actually rise to this occasion.
ExxonKnews: Big Oil wants to increase federal criminal penalties for pipeline protests

ExxonKnews (6/17/24 ([link removed]) )

ES: I think it's all about talking to the actual people on the ground who are doing the protesting. Like you said, it's so easy to paint people as criminals, when the definition of a criminal is defined or written by the same industry trying to protect the product that those people are protesting. So I think it's just so important to get their perspective, find out why they're there. A lot of the time these are regular people, not just activists who are there because of the climate, but also just people who are there trying to protect their water, protect their land and their homes and livelihoods, or journalists who are trying to report on what's going on. And I just think getting their voice heard from a source is the most important thing.

JJ: We've been speaking with Emily Sanders, senior reporter for ExxonKnews. You can find the piece, “Big Oil Wants to Increase Federal Criminal Penalties for Pipeline Protests," online at ExxonKnews.org ([link removed]) , as well as LeverNews.com ([link removed]) . Thank you so much, Emily Sanders, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

ES: Thanks again for having me.


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