Greenpeace Verdict Creates Definitive Playbook For Oil & Gas Industry To Financially Destroy Organized Opposition
Greenpeace must pay the oil company that operates the Dakota Access Pipeline $667 million in damages for defaming it, a North Dakota jury decided Wednesday — a massive financial blow to the group that environmentalists say could chill future advocacy.
The case, heard at the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, North Dakota, centered on Greenpeace’s involvement in the protests over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which became a cultural flash point in the United States nearly eight years ago. The protests lasted for months, drawing thousands of people to a site in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Dallas-based Energy Transfer, which runs the nearly 1,200-mile pipeline that carries oil from the Bakken fields in western North Dakota to Illinois, accused Greenpeace of inciting the protests and encouraging violence to damage the company’s reputation.
Greenpeace, whose spokesperson confirmed the verdict, has said it played little role in the demonstrations. Major environmental groups have described the lawsuit as an intimidation tactic, intended to stifle free speech and their attempts to stop new oil and gas drilling. Greenpeace plans to appeal, the spokesperson said. “What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take,” said Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal counsel for Greenpeace USA. She added: “We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech.”
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Scott Wilson Badenoch Jr., a visiting attorney at the Environmental Law Institute, a nonprofit, traveled to Mandan to watch the proceedings. He said that during voir dire, when lawyers directly question potential jurors, seven of the 11 jurors chosen either worked in the fossil fuel industry or had family members who did. Environmental and free speech advocates in the United States and internationally have paid close attention to the case. Environmental activists say that they are being increasingly targeted by what’s known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP. Critics of these cases have traditionally defined them as meritless defamation lawsuits brought by major companies to silence critics and force them into years of expensive litigation. More than 30 states have laws that discourage these lawsuits; North Dakota is not one.
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https://wapo.st/4iLM8Fv
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/19/greenpeace-dakota-access-pipeline-energy-transfer/
= new reply since forum marked as read
So, who cares? We can trample them easily.
The 1st amendment could be stricken from the Constitution if trump has his way.