[[link removed]]

HOW THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY HELPS SPREAD ANTI-PROTEST LAWS ACROSS
THE US  
[[link removed]]


 

Hilary Beaumont and Nina Lakhani
September 26, 2024
The Guardian
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_ Lobbyists and lawmakers have coordinated to enact new laws that
increase criminal penalties for peaceful protests _

, Illustration: Javier Palma/The Guardian

 

Fossil fuel lobbyists coordinated with lawmakers behind the scenes and
across state lines to push and shape laws that are escalating a
crackdown on peaceful protests against oil and gas expansion, a new
Guardian investigation reveals.

Records obtained by the Guardian show that lobbyists working for major
North American oil and gas companies were key architects of
anti-protest laws that increase penalties and could lead to
non-violent environmental and climate activists being imprisoned up to
10 years.

Emails between fossil fuel lobbyists and lawmakers in Utah, West
Virginia [[link removed]], Idaho
and Ohio suggest a nationwide strategy to deter people frustrated by
government failure to tackle the climate crisis from peacefully
disrupting the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure by enacting
tough laws with lengthy jail sentences.

“Draft bill attached,” wrote a lobbyist representing two
influential fossil fuel trade groups to the lead counsel for the West
Virginia state energy committee in January 2020.

The law, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence, was later
used to charge at least eight peaceful climate protesters including
six senior citizens.

Amid ongoing record oil and gas expansion in the US, activists say
they have turned to protests and non-violent civil disobedience such
as blocking roads and chaining themselves to trees, machinery and
equipment as a way to slow down construction, raise public awareness,
and press for more urgent climate action by governments and
corporations.

[Police arrest protesters who have climbed on top of an earth mover.]

Police arrest environmental activists protesting the Line 3 oil sands
pipeline near Itasca state park in Minnesota on 7 June
2021. Photograph: Kerem Yücel/AFP/Getty Images

Civil disobedience is a form of political protest that involves
breaking the law in a planned, symbolic way – which activists and
rights experts say is part of the bedrock of a democratic society and
in the tradition of civil rights movements.

The months-long investigation by the Guardian found that companies and
lawmakers sought to increase the threat of criminal action against
activists to protect oil and gas expansion – even as deadly and
destructive extreme weather events hit communities nationwide.

Last year was the hottest on record, and wildfires, baking
temperatures, deadly floods and rising sea levels struck communities
across North America – and the rest of the world. Under the Biden
administration, the US has handed out more than 1,450 new oil and gas
licences, accounting for half of the total globally
[[link removed]],
and 20% more licences than those issued by Donald Trump, who has
promised to “drill, baby, drill” should he return to the White
House.

The findings from dozens of freedom of information requests suggest
that the right to peaceful protest is under attack in the US – much
like in other major democracies including the UK, Germany, Canada and
Australia.

These countries, which are the most responsible for greenhouse gas
emissions, continue to back fossil fuel expansion fueling climate
breakdown while cracking down on activists and groups sounding the
alarm – a trend condemned by Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur on
human rights defenders, as “unacceptable”.

“People taking peaceful action to draw attention to global warming,
and calling for governments to finally do something about it, are
human rights defenders – who the US government states that it
supports. [But] that must mean support for all human rights defenders,
even where they challenge action by the US state itself or the
interests of powerful companies,” said Lawlor.

“Existing legislation is being misused or new legislation is being
brought in to criminalise peaceful acts calling for real action to
combat climate change. This is unacceptable.”

In Utah [[link removed]], a major oil, coal
and gas producer in the Rocky Mountain region, lawmakers passed an
anti-protest law carrying up to five years’ jail time after
discussing the need to protect fossil gas. “We’re being forced out
of coal, which is cheap, reliable and plentiful, but have nowhere to
go to find a replacement energy source because natural gas is also
under attack,” a lawmaker wrote in an email in January 2023,
obtained by the Guardian.

Prosecuting non-violent climate protesters is “just legalised
violence”, according to Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and
grassroots organiser who has been arrested for participating in
peaceful climate protests.

“It’s disgusting, it’s deeply un-American, and in the end it
won’t stop the transition to a cleaner world, but it will do great
damage to good people and organizations in the next few years.”

A volley of anti-protest laws punishing civil disobedience with
felonies, fines and long jail sentences has been passed by states
across the US – a response, at least in part, to the 2016
Indigenous-led non-violent uprising against the Dakota Access oil
pipeline on the Standing Rock Indian reservation.

[Dakota Access pipeline water protectors face off with various law
enforcement agencies on 22 February 2017.]

Dakota Access pipeline water protectors face off with various law
enforcement agencies on 22 February 2017. Photograph: ddp
USA/Rex/Shutterstock

Oklahoma, the sixth-largest oil- and gas-producing state in the US,
was the first to pass laws designed to hold individuals and
“conspiring” organisations criminally and civilly liable for
tampering with or trespassing on so-called critical infrastructure
such as pipelines. This inspired a nationwide push from the American
Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a rightwing fossil fuel-funded
group that brings together corporations and lawmakers behind closed
doors to craft model legislation on environmental standards,
reproductive rights and voting, among other issues.

According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law
[[link removed]],
45 states have considered new anti-protest legislation since 2017,
with 22 critical infrastructure bills enacted in states including
Wisconsin, North Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Louisiana. A
critical infrastructure law passed in Georgia in 2023 carries a
penalty of up to 20 years in prison for intentional damage to critical
infrastructure with the intention of disrupting service. In Louisiana,
unauthorized entry around pipelines and other oil and gas facilities
is punishable by imprisonment – with or without hard labor for up to
five years.

So far, the critical infrastructure laws have led to scores of
criminal and civil charges against climate and environmental activists
in several states.

This includes three activists and a journalist
[[link removed]] in Louisiana
protesting against the Dakota Access pipeline; 31 activists
[[link removed]] charged
in Texas after rappelling off a bridge to hang banners protesting
against oil and gas; and eight protesters in West Virginia criminally
charged for peacefully disrupting construction of the Mountain Valley
pipeline (MVP), the fossil fuel project forced through by the
Democratic lawmaker Joe Manchin with help from the supreme court
[[link removed]].

Critics say the wave of critical infrastructure bills is unnecessary
as states can use existing laws to prosecute property destruction and
violence, and that these laws impinge on the freedom of assembly,
petition and speech – which are first amendment rights.

Rico Sisney, who was charged in 2019 under Texas’s critical
infrastructure law, said the felony charge violated his constitutional
rights, leading him to approach future protest activities with “a
great deal of caution”.

“One of the things that makes the critical infrastructure laws so
harmful is that they’re essentially taking something that would be a
trespassing charge and turning it into a felony,” Sisney said.
“It’s essentially a way that the fossil fuel industry is lobbying
to make it harder and harder to have free speech or to engage in these
kinds of demonstrations.”

Emails obtained through dozens of freedom of information requests by
the Guardian found that the groups that first initiated the
legislation in 2017 – including Alec, Marathon Petroleum, and
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers – have continued
pushing anti-protest laws in different states, including most recently
in Idaho [[link removed]] in 2023.

The Guardian also found that the energy companies Dominion and Rocky
Mountain Power pushed for anti-protest laws across different states.

“The records provide a picture of how lawmakers have been captured,
and how Alec, a pay-to-play organisation, works. It’s scary, because
this is a direct assault on our first amendment rights … To find
novel ways to try to criminalise [protest] is just really disgusting
and disturbing and shows that we’re moving towards fascism,” said
David Armiak, research director with the Center for Media and
Democracy.

In a statement, Alec defended its tactics. “Alec has long supported
free speech and peaceful protests. What we don’t support, however,
is any criminal activity such as trespassing or damaging critical
infrastructure. Any suggestions to the contrary are false,”
spokesperson Lars Dalseide said.

[people stand in front of a construction vehicles at a construction
site]

Protesters are confronted by security during a demonstration against
the Dakota Access pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on 3
September 2024. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Dalseide claimed the model legislation “does not apply to climate
activists”. “What it does apply to is anyone who breaks into a
critical infrastructure facility and/or causes damage to the facility,
materials, or property. If those actions – which I believe were
already against the law before 2017 – are required to take part in a
non-violent protest, then perhaps we should re-examine the definition
of non-violent,” he said.

The new investigation by the Guardian builds on previous reporting
by Documented
[[link removed]], the
Intercept
[[link removed]], HuffPo
[[link removed]],
the Center for Media and Democracy
[[link removed]] and
the International Center for Non-Profit Law
[[link removed]] that points to corporate
lobbyists and state lawmakers working in cahoots to make organising
against fossil fuel projects that are driving the climate emergency
increasingly legally risky.

The Guardian was unable to obtain emails from lawmakers in states
including Minnesota, Georgia and Texas due to restrictions on access
to information.

“We’re living in a climate emergency that’s unfolding, and we
need to move away from fossil fuels. [But] the industry is a powerful
force – it’s got incredible wealth, and they’re doing all that
they can to extend the lifeline on their industry or profit model,”
said Armiak, who investigates Alec’s ties with the fossil fuel
industry.

Ohio: early adopter of anti-protest laws

In the midst of a fracking boom, which helped propel it to its
position as the sixth-largest gas-producing state, Ohio
[[link removed]] also became one of the
first to introduce Alec’s model legislation in 2018.

On 7 December 2017, Alec sent a letter
[[link removed]] to
lawmakers to ask for their support of their Critical Infrastructure
Protection Act. The next day, then state senator Frank Hoagland,
an Alec member
[[link removed]] who
runs a private security firm that has reportedly consulted
[[link removed]] for
fossil fuel companies, emailed his senate colleagues asking them to
co-sponsor the bill he was about to introduce, according to records
obtained by the Guardian.

FROM: SENATOR FRANK HOAGLAND

To: All Senate Members

Subject: Co-Sponsor Request

Date: Dec. 8, 2017

“Some have attempted to disrupt operations at facilities and/or
damage vital infrastructure as part of a ‘protest’ … I will soon
be introducing legislation that seeks to discourage such activities by
enhancing penalties associated with certain types of wrongful acts.”

Hoagland added that the legislation was not intended to restrict first
amendment rights to free speech or the ability to protest peacefully.
However, he hoped the bill would pre-emptively prevent direct action.

“It may make groups or individuals think twice though, before they
destroy private property or impede critical infrastructure,”
Hoagland wrote. He noted that Ohio lacked the scale of protests seen
in other states, “but it makes sense to be prepared”.

Fossil fuel lobbyists were eager to support the bill and pushed for
fracking infrastructure to be protected, according to the emails.

Rob Eshenbaugh, a lobbyist registered with AFPM, Exxon and Marathon
Petroleum, and lobbyists registered with Gulfport Energy
[[link removed]] met with members of
the Ohio legislative service commission, which drafts legislation for
lawmakers, to ask for revisions to the bill including adding language
about protecting oil and gas wells. (The Guardian contacted
Eshenbaugh, AFPM, Exxon, Marathon and Gulfport for comment, but did
not hear back.)

According to Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the
Energy and Policy Institute, a non-profit watchdog tracking
misinformation, Ohio has passed multiple laws in recent years
“geared towards financially benefiting the fossil fuel industry and
protecting its interests”. Lawmakers have supported industry
interests despite public hearings dominated by residents concerned
about environmental harms.

“What these emails show for the first time is the direct influence
of lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry on this critical
infrastructure bill in Ohio,” said Anderson.

Hoagland, who retired from the Ohio senate in December 2023, called
the allegations “misinformed and misleading”. He said: “Your
email appears to be merely a propaganda effort and for what reason? I
have personally and professionally not heard one word on this
topic.”

Hoagland’s 2018 bill did not pass. But it returned, backed by
powerful utilities
[[link removed]], and
passed in 2021 after lobbying by more
[[link removed]] than
a dozen fossil fuel trade groups and multinational corporations
including Exxon and Marathon. The law carries penalties of up to eight
years in prison.

The expansion looks set to continue in Ohio, which is experiencing
more flooding and less ice on the Great Lakes due to global heating.
JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Republican vice-president pick, has
called for an expansion of pipelines and drilling wells that would tie
Ohio into oil and gas for decades to come. “I believe that right now
is the time to double down on the Ohio energy industry,” Vance has
said
[[link removed]].

West Virginia: a controversial pipeline

One of the biggest priorities in recent years for climate and
environmental activists has been the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), a
300-mile (480km) fossil gas pipeline stretching across the Appalachian
mountains in Virginia and West Virginia. In 2018, as construction
crews began clearing dense forestland, protesters occupied trees along
the pipeline route. The pipeline is forecast to add nearly 90m
[[link removed]] metric
tons of planet-heating emissions annually, equivalent to 23 coal
plants.

[Appalachians Against Pipelines, a direct action group, has documented
its campaign against the Mountain Valley pipeline, and how
anti-protest laws have targeted its members.]

Appalachians Against Pipelines, a direct action group, has documented
its campaign against the Mountain Valley pipeline, and how
anti-protest laws have targeted its members. Photograph:
@appalachiansagainstpipelines

Fossil fuel lobbyists and lawmakers already had a close working
relationship, according to emails obtained by the Guardian, and it
didn’t take long for the gas industry to respond to protests by
suggesting a critical infrastructure bill.

In June 2019, Dominion lobbyist Robert Orndorff_ _emailed Robert
Akers, chief counsel to the West Virginia legislature’s joint energy
and manufacturing committee, to explain that Amy Summers, a house
delegate, had reached out to ask if they had “ever considered a bill
to address civil disobedience towards pipelines”, according to an
email first published by the Intercept
[[link removed]].
(Dominion did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. The
company told the Intercept it did not initiate the bill.)

“I know two years ago we did pass a bill that created a criminal
offence for trespass. I am not sure it addressed civil disobedience.
Maybe the Energy committee should consider such a law,” added
Orndorff, copying other lobbyists into the email including Greg Hoyer,
who lobbied for EQT Corporation, the majority shareholder and operator
of the MVP.

In November 2019, Hoyer had dinner with the chairman of the state
energy committee and Akers, the committee’s chief counsel. After
dinner, he forwarded Akers an op-ed from EQT’s president and CEO,
Toby Rice, saying “the industry needs to spread good news, and gas,
abroad”, according to an email obtained by the Guardian.

FROM: GREG HOYER, EQT

To: Robert Akers, Chief Counsel to the Committee on Energy

Subject: FW: EQT’s Toby Rice says the industry needs to spread good
news, and gas, abroad

Date: Nov. 14, 2019

“A couple of good reads for the Chairman. We had dinner the other
night and I told him I would pass these articles along.”

Then, at the start of the legislative session, Orion Strategies
lobbyist Thomas J O’Neil emailed Akers.

FROM: THOMAS J O’NEILL, ORION STRATEGIES

To: Robert Akers, Chief Counsel to the Committee on Energy

Subject: West Virginia Critical Infrastructure Protection Act –
Revised Draft TJO 14Jan2020.docx

Date: Jan. 21, 2020

“Draft bill attached”

The attachment was called “West Virginia Critical Infrastructure
Protection Act – Revised Draft TJO 14Jan2020”, according to an
email obtained by the Guardian.

O’Neill was a registered lobbyist for two powerful trade groups:
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and the Oil &
Natural Gas [[link removed]] Association
of West Virginia. (Neither trade group nor Akers responded to requests
for comment.)

Just 10 days after that email, on 30 January 2020, lawmaker John Kelly
introduced the critical infrastructure protection bill, which he later
admitted was at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.

“Simple explanation, this bill reinforces property rights. When a
person goes on private property and does intentional damage,” Kelly
wrote to a constituent who questioned the legislation, in an email in
February 2020 first reported by the Intercept
[[link removed]].
“The bill was requested by the natural gas industry, because
protesters entered a drilling site and destroyed equipment.”

The law, which carried penalties of one to five years in prison,
passed in spring 2020.

In an email, Chris Hall of Orion Strategies took credit for organising
support for the law that he said was “intended to preempt acts of
intentional trespass and damage to critical infrastructure
facilities”.

[people hold up signs protesting a pipeline]

Demonstrators protest the Mountain Valley pipeline in Alexandria,
Virginia, on 28 September 2021. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP

“Orion Strategies would like to thank all those involved in
supporting the passage of this new law that will help ensure
development of some of this region’s most important infrastructure
projects,” Hall wrote.

In an email response to the Guardian, Hall, Orion’s chief financial
and administrative officer, said: “Orion Strategies firmly stands by
its work on this essential bipartisan legislation which increased
penalties on already-illegal activities by terrorists and criminals
who were destroying equipment and endangering the lives and health of
workers on private property job sites. This law protects all critical
infrastructure – including renewable energy, water and sewer – not
just natural gas facilities.”

In 2024, lawmakers amended the law to broaden offences and punish some
second-offence felonies with up to 10 years in prison.

“The completion of MVP is the beginning of opportunity creation, for
our communities, for America, for our allies and for the planet,”
said Rice, EQT’s president, in June, at a joint press conference
with Joe Manchin to celebrate gas flowing through the pipeline.

Utah: ‘corporate capture’ of government

In December 2022, after shooting attacks on electrical substations in
several states by unidentified perpetrators with unknown motives,
Alec promoted its
[[link removed]] model
critical infrastructure protection bill as a solution. There is no
evidence the attacks were linked to anyone in the climate movement.

Shortly after, lawmakers went to work pushing such laws in states
including Idaho and Utah that could have major consequences for
climate activists.

Utah is highly dependent on coal and gas. Fossil fuels accounted for
about 80% of Utah’s total electricity generation in 2023, according
to the US Energy Information Administration
[[link removed]]. In February 2023,
three months after Alec’s suggestion, Utah introduced a critical
infrastructure law that punished peaceful protests against fossil fuel
infrastructure with up to five years in jail.

Lawmaker Carl Albrecht, an Alec member
[[link removed]] who has
long worked to protect the state’s fossil fuel industry, publicly
claimed the law was in response to attacks on substations in other
states. But emails obtained by the Guardian show that Republican
lawmakers were brainstorming ways to protect gas, which they believed
was “under attack”.

At the time, Albrecht was working closely with another Republican
lawmaker, Colin Jack, an “Alec policy champion
[[link removed]]”,
to protect coal and gas in Utah. The emails show that Jack and
Albrecht asked several Utah power companies if they should pass a law
defining gas as “renewable” so it would “be under less
attack”.

In 2023, days after Ohio’s governor signed a law defining gas as
“green energy”, Jack wrote to lobbyists for several power and
utility companies, and Albrecht, about the possibility of passing
similar legislation.

FROM: STATE REP. COLIN JACK

To: State Rep. Carl Albrecht and Utah power companies

Subject: Re: “Green” Natural Gas

Date: Jan. 13, 2023

“Carl [Albrecht] and I were wondering if there’s anything here
that would help us in the power production world?

“We’re being forced out of coal, which is cheap, reliable, and
plentiful, but have nowhere to go to find a replacement energy source
because natural gas is also under attack. I wonder if there’s any
value to us as an industry to add natural gas to the code as
‘renewable’ or something, so that it will be under less attack.”

In the end, Albrecht introduced the critical infrastructure bill, and
emails show he made several amendments to the draft legislation per
industry requests. In one example, an attorney from a major Utah power
cooperative drafted language in the bill – specifically the
definition of “critical infrastructure facility”, which included
oil and gas facilities.

Dominion, which had pushed for West Virginia’s critical
infrastructure law, also sought amendments to Utah’s critical
infrastructure law – requesting language that would protect gas and
electricity. The Utah Petroleum Association also requested changes to
protect fossil fuel infrastructure. Albrecht replied: “Yes, that’s
fine. I’ll send to the drafter thx.”

The Guardian reached out to Albrecht, Jack, Dominion and the Utah
Petroleum Association for comment, but did not hear back.

In response to the new records obtained by the Guardian, Ruhan Nagra,
director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at the University of Utah
College of Law, condemned “the extent of the corporate capture and
the way that industry and Alec have commandeered the machinery of the
government to achieve their ends”.

“It should really be shocking to people that industry is sitting
there and emailing elected representatives and drafting legislation,
and lawmakers are treating industry as co-drafters of legislation –
that should be deeply, deeply alarming to people,” Nagra said.

Utah is a deeply red state, and the Republican party currently holds
the entire congressional delegation, all statewide executive offices
and supermajorities in both state legislative chambers. Protests and
acts of civil disobedience are among the only ways people concerned
about the climate can push for change.

“In states like Utah, we cannot afford to have this type of
legislation … It’s chilling speech,” Nagra said.

“These critical infrastructure laws are so dangerous because they
threaten to quash the only thing that can get us out of this crisis,
which is a mobilised, grassroots, global community rising up and
demanding change,” she added.

Idaho: another bill backed by fossil fuel firms

Also in February 2023, the Idaho lawmaker Britt Raybould introduced a
critical infrastructure bill in the state, which was backed by fossil
fuel firms.

Supporters included Marathon Petroleum, one of the companies that in
2017 signed a letter by Alec
[[link removed]] to
state lawmakers asking them to pass laws that would hold individuals
and organisations criminally and financially liable for damage to any
so-called critical infrastructure.

Another backer of the Idaho bill was Rocky Mountain Power, which has
an energy mix that includes gas. Records obtained by the Guardian show
that the company was also involved in the Utah bill.

[police officers stand over a person on the ground while restraining
that person’s arms]

Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest against the
Line 3 pipeline in Park Rapids, Minnesota, on 7 June
2021. Photograph: Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters

In one committee hearing, Raybould repeated arguments made by Alec
[[link removed]] after
the substation attacks. At another, she shared a map with the
committee that showed other states with critical infrastructure laws.
“Idaho would not be the first state to go down this path,” she
said. “… This is not Idaho breaking new territory, this is simply
providing protection within our state.”

A committee member pointed out that there was already a trespass law
on the books in the state. Raybould replied that her bill mirrored the
trespass language but added an “enhanced penalty”. Another
committee member asked if the bill was model legislation. Raybould
answered: “No, however there are other states who have pursued
similar legislation.”

Records obtained by the Guardian show that Raybould emailed various
groups asking them to testify in support of her bill, including a
lobbyist registered for Rocky Mountain Power (RMP). Several companies
including RMP replied to say they supported the bill. Raybould told
the committee that Marathon Petroleum and RMP supported the
legislation.

Raybould introduced critical infrastructure bills in 2023 and 2024,
but they failed to pass.

The Guardian received no response from Raybould, Marathon or Rocky
Mountain Power.

“You now have evidence that the whole Alec strategy to address the
power plant attacks with the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act
was just spin and a new PR method to get the bill passed in places
where it hadn’t passed,” said Armiak from the Center for Media and
Democracy.

“We all have a first amendment right to express ourselves,” Armiak
said. “That right should be respected. And if people aren’t
expressing themselves without a fear of arrest, then that is something
that we should all be concerned about.”

_Hilary Beaumont is an investigative journalist who covers the
intersection of climate change, Indigenous rights and immigration.
Follow her on Twitter @hilarybeaumont_

_Nina Lakhani is senior reporter for Guardian US.
Twitter @ninalakhani [[link removed]]_

* Fossil Fuel Corportations
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* Environmental Protests
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* industry lobby
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* punishment
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