The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests failed to stop the energy project from being completed, and they could wind up bankrupting Greenpeace USA.
The environmental advocacy group has warned that it could go bust if a North Dakota jury rules in favor of Energy Transfer’s $300 million lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses Greenpeace entities of helping fund and train the activists who wreaked havoc on the pipeline’s construction in the name of protecting the environment.
“While the money may not be important to Energy Transfer, a $300 million judgment would shut down Greenpeace USA,” Charlie Cray, Greenpeace USA senior strategist, said in a video posted by the group called “Greenpeace on Trial.”
Greenpeace began its defense this week after attorneys for Dallas-based Energy Transfer rested their case Monday in Morton County District Court in Mandan, North Dakota. The trial began Feb. 24 and is expected to last five weeks.
Greenpeace suffered a defeat last week when the North Dakota Supreme Court denied its request to move the trial to Fargo from Mandan, the community that bore the brunt of the months-long protest mayhem.
Energy Transfer sued the Greenpeace entities — Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and the Greenpeace Fund — in 2019 for trespass, property damage, defamation, tortious interference and conspiracy stemming from the campaign to stop the final leg of construction on the 1,172-mile pipeline.
Thousands of protesters descended on the construction site near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation starting in April 2016. They engaged in peaceful protests but vandalized equipment, blocked roads, set fires, butchered livestock, threatened workers and tangled with police.
Most of the protesters left at the onset of the North Dakota winter. After the National Guard swept out the final stragglers in February 2017, crews found a dozen abandoned dogs and hauled off 21 million pounds of garbage in a $1.1 million cleanup.
The mass demonstration served as a template for the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the 2024 university encampments, extended protest events billed as grassroots uprisings supported behind the scenes by outside organizations.
In the end, Energy Transfer prevailed. Dozens of the DAPL protesters were arrested, mostly on trespassing charges. The pipeline went online in June 2017, running crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region to an oil terminal in Patoka, Illinois.
Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, said Greenpeace raised millions of dollars off the protests based on what he described as “lies” about the project, such as that the pipeline encroached on the Standing Rock reservation. The pipeline runs a half-mile from the boundary at its closest point.
“They torched a lot of our equipment, costing us millions of dollars,” Mr. Warren told CNBC in a July interview. “They attempted to cut holes in our pipeline. Think about that: Here’s the people that are saying we’re going to poison their water, and they’re trying to cut holes in our pipeline so that it will leak, and they can say, ‘Look what you did.’”
In addition, he said, the protest delayed construction by about 90 days, causing the company to miss a production deadline that cost it millions of dollars.
“We’ve got to do something,” Mr. Warren said. “Everybody’s afraid of these environmental groups and the fear that it may look wrong if you fight back with these people, but what they did to us is wrong, and they’re going to pay for it.”
During court proceedings, Energy Transfer attorneys sought to connect Greenpeace to the protests, citing payments made to activist groups such as Indigenous Peoples Power Project and Red Warrior Camp.
Jurors were shown an Aug. 30, 2016, email from IP3 founding member Nick Tilsen to Greenpeace employee Cy Wagoner, an IP3 board member, according to Legal Newsline, which is covering the trial.
“Our ability to provide this level of training would not be possible without financial support from Greenpeace,” Mr. Tilsen said in the email.
Protesters received an initial $21,000 “rapid response grant,” as well as other payments and materials, including a solar-powered van, 30 lockboxes to tie protesters to equipment, and propane canisters ignited and thrown at law enforcement and construction workers.
Other payments from Greenpeace to IP3 included $15,982 from Aug. 30 to Sept. 15, 2016, and a $6,250 stipend to cover the trainers’ per diem costs and travel expenses.
In a September funding request, Mr. Wagoner said, “We believe this proposal has the potential to provide skills training to 3,000 activists.”
The trial has become a cause celebre for environmentalists. More than 400 organizations have signed an open letter accusing Energy Transfer of seeking to silence its critics with an expensive lawsuit that threatens Greenpeace’s free speech rights.
“This case is a prime example of corporations abusing the legal system to silence critics and keep their operations secret,” said Sushma Raman, Greenpeace USA interim executive director. “It is also a critical test of the future of the First Amendment — both freedom of speech and peaceful protest — under the Trump Administration and beyond.”
Deepa Padmanabha, Greenpeace’s senior legal adviser, countered the defamation claims by saying that the environmental group’s statements “were already widely circulated in the public.”
“These were not statements that Greenpeace invented, and they were all legitimate expressions of the First Amendment protected right to speak,” she said in a Feb. 21 statement.
Although Greenpeace described the trial as “one of the most consequential free speech cases in recent history,” media access is limited.
Southwest Judicial District Judge James Gion has prohibited photography, video or livestreaming of the trial. The North Dakota Supreme Court upheld the decision, meaning only reporters at the trial can witness the proceedings.
Climate skeptic Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot, was dubious of Greenpeace USA’s “going-out-of-business” warnings, dismissing them as “another fundraising appeal.”
“I’m sure they will use it as a great fundraising tool to keep themselves alive,” Mr. Morano said in an email. “After all, who would replace Greenpeace’s voice when it comes to raising climate alarm or trying to destroy the global energy supply and hammering consumers with higher energy costs for no particular reason?”
