Greenpeace loss will embolden big oil and gas to pursue protesters: ‘No one will feel safe’

A pipeline company’s victory in court over Greenpeace, and the huge damages it now faces, will encourage other oil and gas companies to legally pursue environmental protesters at a time when Donald Trump’s energy agenda is in ascendancy, experts have warned.

On Wednesday a North Dakota jury ruled that three Greenpeace entities collectively must pay Energy Transfer, which was co-founded by a prominent Trump donor, more than $660m, deciding that the organizations were liable for defamation and other claims after a five-week trial in Mandan, near where the Dakota Access pipeline protests occurred in 2016 and 2017.

“This verdict will embolden other energy companies to take legal action against protesters who physically block their projects,” said Michael Gerrard, the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

“It will chill those kinds of protests; whether the chilling goes beyond that remains to be seen. It won’t inhibit litigation against fossil fuel projects; we will surely see more of those as the Trump administration advances its ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda.”

Kevin Cramer, the US senator from North Dakota, cheered Wednesday’s massive judgement against Greenpeace over the pipeline protests in his state, congratulating the energy company who sued the environmental group for its big win.

Justice was served, he said. “They can think twice now about doing it again,” he said of Greenpeace and other environmental groups who protested the Dakota Access pipeline.

Brian Hauss, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said that the lawsuit serves as a “tax on speech,” one that makes it too expensive to go against “litigious, deep-pocketed corporations”.

“If companies can sue critics, advocates and protesters into oblivion for their speech and the unlawful acts of third parties, then no one will feel safe protesting corporate malfeasance,” Hauss said.

In the days since the ruling was issued, environmental groups and protest movements have reacted with shock and dismay, warning that its impact stretches far beyond any individual organization.

Some legal experts were surprised the case even made it before a jury. Similar claims often get tossed out over First Amendment concerns or because many states prevent so-called Slapp suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation). North Dakota doesn’t have an anti-Slapp law.

Greenpeace’s goals – such as protecting the climate and preserving oceans – won’t change, said Sushma Raman, the interim executive director of Greenpeace USA. But “it’s really going to be a question of capacity and prioritization, which happens in any organization that is facing an existential threat of this kind,” Raman said.

“Ultimately, this isn’t about the money for them,” Raman said of Energy Transfer. “It’s really about sending a message, and it’s trying to silence an organization that they feel is a thorn in their side.”

Energy Transfer’s CEO, Kelcy Warren, has donated millions to pro-Trump groups and given directly to the president’s campaigns over the years. He has made a mission of going after pipeline opponents, including Greenpeace, filing several lawsuits to that end.

Some conservatives have celebrated his approach. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, said it was “great news!” that the verdict could bankrupt Greenpeace. Erick Erickson, a conservative talkshow host, said Warren was his hero. “I’m a longtime shareholder of Energy Transfer and his campaign to destroy Greenpeace has been awesome to behold. God bless him,” Erickson wrote on X.

Shayana “Shane” Kadidal, a senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, called to mind economic boycotts during the US civil rights movement that inflicted damage on white-owned businesses, and how those businesses retaliated with civil lawsuits against groups such as the NAACP, trying to frame their activism as a conspiracy.

“Billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk and Energy Transfer’s Kelcy Warren now pose one of the most significant risks to free speech globally,” Kadidal said.

Greenpeace began in the 1970s with a campaign led by Canadian activists to block nuclear weapons testing on an Alaskan island, its roots based in direct action. US offshoots grew throughout that decade. It is headquartered in the Netherlands, where it has filed an anti-Slapp lawsuit against Energy Transfer.

It has said it got involved in the Dakota Access protests because the tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux, asked for its help. The organization has a policy of only getting involved in Indigenous-led movements if specifically asked, the New York Times reported.

Waniya Locke, of Standing Rock Grassroots, said the verdict “attempts to erase Indigenous leadership from Standing Rock’s history” and part of a “coordinated attack on communities organizing to protect their water and futures from big oil”.

The Greenpeace case isn’t the only recent example of a heightened legal attack on free speech. Protesters on US college campuses have been met with disciplinary actions for supporting Palestinian human rights, the most extreme example involving the push to deport a former Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalil. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has sued his critics.

The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law has tracked a rise in anti-protest bills since 2017, corresponding with major protest movements including actions against pipelines, on college campuses, for teachers and for racial justice. These proposals include “extreme” penalties for protest-related offenses like trespassing near a pipeline, the center notes in its analysis. They also call for expanded liability for organizations or individuals that aren’t directly involved in protests. “Nonprofits, religious groups, and others will be much more reluctant to support or organize protected protests if they face possible penalties for the unlawful actions of others,” the center said in its analysis.

The verdict is not the end for this case – Greenpeace has said it will appeal to the North Dakota supreme court. Legal experts believe the organization has a better shot on appeal, citing the jury’s ties to the oil and gas industry and the broad disapproval of the protest among local residents.

In the defeat, there has also been resolve.

“You can’t sue or bankrupt a movement,” Raman said.