Speaker 1: There's only one state this year that really has high
Speaker 1: profile pipeline protests going on. That's Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Thirty years ago this week, the Line three pipeline and
Speaker 2: Northern Minnesota rupture, spilling one point seven million gallons of
Speaker 2: crude oil into a frozen river near Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
Speaker 2: If the river had not been frozen, the oil could
Speaker 2: have seeped into the Mississippi River and contaminated drinking water
Speaker 2: for millions downstream. Protests have been ongoing to stop construction
Speaker 2: rerouting a section of the Line three pipeline, which could
Speaker 2: impact indigenous communities and local waterways.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelts. You might
Speaker 3: have heard recently about the Line three pipeline project in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Some people are calling it the next Standing Rock because
Speaker 3: it's been at the center of protests for years, particularly
Speaker 3: from indigenous tribes in the area. Activist and Authorjanona La
Speaker 3: Duke has been involved in that fight for seven years.
Speaker 3: Here she is talking to PBS News about it earlier
Speaker 3: this month.
Speaker 4: I'm a grandmother, you know, and we're standing out there.
Speaker 4: I have six charges against me for this pipeline, and
Speaker 4: there's a bunch of us that are facing charges for,
Speaker 4: you know, trying to be a water protector.
Speaker 3: L Duke and others have been part of this seven
Speaker 3: year fight opposing the project throughout the state and federal
Speaker 3: review processes.
Speaker 4: It is the largest tarzans pipeline in the world. This
Speaker 4: pipeline is the equivalent to fifty new coal fire power plants.
Speaker 4: So you know, if you're trying to save the planet,
Speaker 4: this is not the way to do it.
Speaker 3: I couldn't get to Minnesota myself. I'm not vaccinated yet,
Speaker 3: so I don't want to impose myself on the community.
Speaker 3: Plus I have kids. But also this is one of
Speaker 3: those stories where I want to hear from local and
Speaker 3: particularly Native journalists. I did want to see, though, whether
Speaker 3: the evolving Line three story dovetailed it all with something else.
Speaker 3: I've been tracking fossil fuel backed anti protest bills. I've
Speaker 3: written about this a few times. A bunch of other
Speaker 3: journalists have done some great reporting on it as well.
Speaker 3: There's some good stuff in huff Post and The Intercept.
Speaker 3: I'll drop some links in the show notes for those
Speaker 3: of you who want to read more. These bills have
Speaker 3: been passed in fourteen states now and proposed in about
Speaker 3: half the states in the country. They differ a little
Speaker 3: bit from state to state, but in general, they increase
Speaker 3: the fines and jail time associated with trespassing dramatically. They
Speaker 3: often bump trespassing up from a misdemeanor to a felony,
Speaker 3: and they seem to be specifically targeting organizers and the
Speaker 3: organizations they work with, with steep penalties for organizing or
Speaker 3: training activists who then trespass, So even if the organizer
Speaker 3: isn't there at the protest, they can still be charged.
Speaker 3: And it turns out there are six six anti protest
Speaker 3: bills making their way through the Minnesota state legislature right now.
Speaker 3: Some of them are bundled together, so it amounts to
Speaker 3: four different legislative packages, but still that's a lot. That's
Speaker 3: important because on top of cracking down on pipeline protests,
Speaker 3: there's growing concern that these bills will be used to
Speaker 3: quell other sorts of protests too, And remember, Minnesota was
Speaker 3: ground zero for last summer's Black Lives Matter protests. In
Speaker 3: the days after police murdered George Floyd. To talk about
Speaker 3: Minnesota's proposals, where these laws came from in general, and
Speaker 3: how they're moving through the country right now. I asked
Speaker 3: researcher Connor Gibson to join me. He's been keeping tabs
Speaker 3: on these bills really since they started to pick up
Speaker 3: steam in the wake of the standing rock protests. That
Speaker 3: conversation coming up right after this quick break. It seems
Speaker 3: like all of a sudden, the piece has picked up again.
Speaker 3: But I don't know if that's just like a feeling
Speaker 3: or if that's actually what's happened. So I'm curious to
Speaker 3: see what you've seen on that front.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is the case that these fossil fuel infrastructure
Speaker 1: anti protest bills are currently gaining steam in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one legislative sessions of many states. I think the
Speaker 1: main difference between this year and last year is last
Speaker 1: year the pandemic really just messed up the strategy. We
Speaker 1: still saw plenty of bills and laws passed in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but I think it was reduced by the impact of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, the confusion and cancelations and delays that caused
Speaker 1: a state legislature. So I suspect what we're seeing in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one is a lot of what companies intended
Speaker 1: to do last year. They just weren't able to do
Speaker 1: as much as quickly as they would have liked. But
Speaker 1: that said, bill's still passed in the law during the
Speaker 1: pandemic in West Virginia, in Kentucky, and this year we're
Speaker 1: seeing more states continue the trend, including some states that
Speaker 1: failed to pass bills last year, like Illinois, like Alabama.
Speaker 1: And there's only one state this year that really has
Speaker 1: high profile pipeline protests going on. That's Minnesota. Line three
Speaker 1: revamp being done by Enbridge and being hastened along by
Speaker 1: many other players in the oil industry makes the situation
Speaker 1: a little bit more relevant and urgent in Minnesota than
Speaker 1: in other states. You know, I can't tell you why
Speaker 1: Arkansas cares so much to felamize pipeline protest. They're big
Speaker 1: pipeline resistance kind of happened a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: with the Diamond pipeline.
Speaker 3: Right Connor, was that? Did that come into play in
Speaker 3: Oklahoma too? Was it the same pipeline, the Diamond pipeline.
Speaker 1: I want to say, yes, yep.
Speaker 4: It was. I checked.
Speaker 3: So in early twenty seventeen, local newspapers in Arkansas and
Speaker 3: Oklahoma were reporting that tribes, mostly in Oklahoma did not
Speaker 3: approve of the diamond pipeline and that several indigenous activists
Speaker 3: planned to protest it. There was a lot of handringing
Speaker 3: about whether this would be the quote unquote next standing rock.
Speaker 3: Noticing a theme here, and in February twenty seventeen, Oklahoma
Speaker 3: Representative Scott Biggs proposed the anti protest bill that the
Speaker 3: rest would be based on. Here's a bit of tape
Speaker 3: from that session. The person you'll hear pushing bigs for
Speaker 3: answers is Representative Corey Williams.
Speaker 5: This issue has definitely risen to the level of concern
Speaker 5: here in Oklahoma, giving our state status as an oil
Speaker 5: producer energy producer, and what's going on in other states.
Speaker 5: So we took what happened or what bill we passed
Speaker 5: last year with the Critical Infrastructure Bill regarding flying drones
Speaker 5: over refineries or cushing or places like that, and we've
Speaker 5: now expanded that to provide some greater protection for those
Speaker 5: critical infrastructures are necessary for the state to operate. So
Speaker 5: the proposed committee sub basically lines out trespassing, helps define
Speaker 5: what critical infrastructure is, and provides some for some enhanced
Speaker 5: penalties for damage caused by truspassing.
Speaker 6: Thank you, mister Shire. When I was looking through some
Speaker 6: of the definitions on this, and a lot of them
Speaker 6: I can see, but a couple of them, I thought, well,
Speaker 6: that's pretty open ended if we wanted to prosecute it.
Speaker 6: I think it just says railroad tracks. That's pretty open
Speaker 6: ended thing to consider to be critical infrastructure that would
Speaker 6: have this enhanced penalty along with it. I mean, I
Speaker 6: understand like a power generation facility and substations and things
Speaker 6: like that. I guess my question is twofold, do you
Speaker 6: think that a couple of these definitions might be a
Speaker 6: little bit open ended and allow some abusive prosecution? And
Speaker 6: then secondly, can you tell can you elaborate more on
Speaker 6: you said that this has risen to the level of
Speaker 6: a need. Can you describe the incident that there were
Speaker 6: incidents that have brought us to the forefront?
Speaker 5: Answer your questions Number one, absolutely not. I do not
Speaker 5: believe if prosecutors are abusive in their discretion and their
Speaker 5: role and their function to protect the state. I know
Speaker 5: you disagree with me on that, and we have for
Speaker 5: four years, but no, they're not abusive in their discretion. No,
Speaker 5: I do not disagree. You know agree with you that
Speaker 5: these definitions are open ended. I believe that if you
Speaker 5: have an issue with the industry, I'm pretty sure the
Speaker 5: rail industry could demonstrate how they're vital to Oklahoma. You know,
Speaker 5: they're in cushion just south of your district. Is extremely
Speaker 5: vital the oil gas industry for all the rail that's
Speaker 5: pumping in this crewde oil because the pipelines have been protested,
Speaker 5: the pipelines haven't been built, so now they're using rail
Speaker 5: to move that oil, to move those products into our state.
Speaker 3: The Oklahoma bill was pointed to as the one that
Speaker 3: all the other bills were modeled after, but not without
Speaker 3: some help from the fossil fuel industry. In fact, industry
Speaker 3: reps were there the day Oklahoma's bill was introduced, ready
Speaker 3: to answer questions in.
Speaker 6: Your last response, I didn't actually hear you elaborate on
Speaker 6: the incidents. It was it just the pipeline incident or
Speaker 6: I don't think they did damage to property, but obviously there.
Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure they did a whole lot of damage
Speaker 5: to property in North Dakota, Okay.
Speaker 6: Is that please?
Speaker 5: Yes, please join if you if you want to learn more.
Speaker 5: We actually have a meeting here at four o'clock today
Speaker 5: with some individuals from North Dakota that are here to
Speaker 5: talk to us, talk to the industry about what they're
Speaker 5: having to deal with the aftermath of those protesters. Up
Speaker 5: there's four o'clock Gripson McBride is sponsoring that open meeting
Speaker 5: to the public. But yes, that is the main reason
Speaker 5: behind this.
Speaker 3: So there's a bit of background on the origins of
Speaker 3: these bills. Now back to my conversation with Connor for more. Okay,
Speaker 3: so actually, maybe I'll have you back up a little
Speaker 3: bit and give folks a brief sort of history of
Speaker 3: these bills that you know, they sort of started to
Speaker 3: appear with the Oklahoma Bill shortly after Standing Rock and
Speaker 3: very much were a reaction to that protest.
Speaker 1: Sure thing. I'm actually going to take us way back
Speaker 1: in time to September eleventh, two thousand and one, terrible
Speaker 1: day in world history, when the world trade centers went
Speaker 1: down and the Pentagon was attacked, and the country was
Speaker 1: in a state of fear and confusion and very much
Speaker 1: ready to accept so draconian government restrictions in the name
Speaker 1: of our national security and not having to live through
Speaker 1: anything like that. Again, there were some industries that were
Speaker 1: starting to have this kind of conversation, and the first
Speaker 1: more coherent discussion that I saw about critical infrastructure and
Speaker 1: upping penalties for people that are trespassing on it or
Speaker 1: near it, or certainly damaging any of the equipment. Those conversations,
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, we're starting to happen.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, two thousand and four, there
Speaker 1: was a law that was passed in Louisiana, Act one
Speaker 1: fifty seven that set in motion the idea that there
Speaker 1: would be heightened penalties for trespassing on critical infrastructure sites.
Speaker 1: I don't think oil pipelines were included at first in
Speaker 1: that Louisiana law. They added that in twenty fifteen, but
Speaker 1: at that point some companies, including oil companies, started talking
Speaker 1: about this. And there is a group that's similar to ALEC,
Speaker 1: but not nearly as captured and partisan, called the Council
Speaker 1: of State Governments. It is a bipartisan consortium of state legislators.
Speaker 1: They do produce some model legislation in a way that's
Speaker 1: similar to ALEC, but in addition to working in ways
Speaker 1: that are much more broad than ALEC does a bunch
Speaker 1: of different kinds of legislative trainings and working groups on
Speaker 1: various issues. The Council of State Governments produced a report
Speaker 1: that was financed by BP and others that embellished upon
Speaker 1: some of this, And then I couldn't really tell you
Speaker 1: what happens between two thousand and six in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: As far as my research went, there didn't seem to
Speaker 1: be any major events. But twenty fifteen, and this is
Speaker 1: before Standing Rock and before the Dakota Access Pipeline was
Speaker 1: being hotly protested, Louisiana started updating that critical Infrastructure law
Speaker 1: that it had passed in two thousand and four. Interesting,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until two thousand and seventeen, the end
Speaker 1: of the year December, that the American Legislative Exchange Council
Speaker 1: ended out creating a model bill, Which is just to
Speaker 1: say that there were some states starting to field test
Speaker 1: different avenues with which to restrict oil and gas protesters,
Speaker 1: specifically including Alabama, including Michigan, including Washington. They just hadn't
Speaker 1: taken coherent shape in terms of this play that we're
Speaker 1: seeing now, where it's felony level penalties for people who
Speaker 1: are committing nonviolent acts of trespass coupled with compounded fines
Speaker 1: and jail sentences often for organizations or individuals who are
Speaker 1: found to be affiliated with those protesters. They don't have
Speaker 1: to have trespass themselves, they don't have to have damaged
Speaker 1: anything themselves. Afiliated with somebody that did, they wind up
Speaker 1: being charged. And the first state that passed both of
Speaker 1: those things in a pretty clear and coherent way with
Speaker 1: Oklahoma in twenty seventeen. And that's usually where this story
Speaker 1: starts in terms of people that are following and talking
Speaker 1: about the issue. But you know, I do think it's
Speaker 1: important to know that it didn't just explode randomly or
Speaker 1: not so randomly, but in reaction to Standing Rock. There
Speaker 1: was activity happening in a lot of these states leading
Speaker 1: up to that point, and in twenty seventeen things really
Speaker 1: became codified into the strategy that we've seen. It was
Speaker 1: later that year the American Legislative Exchange Council passed its
Speaker 1: model bill internally within itself at a meeting in December
Speaker 1: of that year. And there's really there was some excellent
Speaker 1: reporting that was done that actually has really helped inform
Speaker 1: and understand how this trend took off. There was a
Speaker 1: letter that was written to the Legis laders who participated
Speaker 1: in that specific ALEC meeting in December twenty seventeen. They
Speaker 1: had not yet approved this critical Infrastructure Felony law template
Speaker 1: law yet. And the American Chemistry Council, which is chemical
Speaker 1: manufacturers lobbyists, and the Edison Electric Institute which is electric
Speaker 1: utility lobbyists, and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers which
Speaker 1: was the refinery companies, in addition to Marathon Petroleum and
Speaker 1: the American Gas Association which is gas utility companies. They
Speaker 1: all signed the letter to alex legislators and said, please
Speaker 1: make a model bill out of this, do it at
Speaker 1: this meeting, do it in the next few days. And
Speaker 1: they listed a bunch of reasons justifying why a law
Speaker 1: was needed. One of the examples used with was the
Speaker 1: valve turners, a nonviolent protest that occurred in order to
Speaker 1: stop development of the Keystone Excel pipeline and the valves.
Speaker 1: Hearner's example was the only example that was used by
Speaker 1: these lobbyists to justify these laws that didn't have to
Speaker 1: do actually with oil industry ex employees or people suffering
Speaker 1: from serious incidents of mental illness committing acts of sabotage
Speaker 1: against gas infrastructure, so much like we're seeing with the
Speaker 1: Capitol riots where George Floyd gets murdered by police, a
Speaker 1: bunch of time goes by Republicans theorize about ways to
Speaker 1: punish the people who are reacting in outrage to the
Speaker 1: murder of black and brown people in this country by
Speaker 1: police officers. Then the Capitol riots happened, a bunch of
Speaker 1: white supremacists stormed the Capitol, and now we're going to
Speaker 1: be passing anti riot laws to go after black people,
Speaker 1: essentially for the sins committed by white nationalists. This trend
Speaker 1: in the oil and gas industry struck me as starkly similar.
Speaker 1: They're justifying going after environmental protesters who are largely non violent,
Speaker 1: committing access civil disobedience in order to stop the fossil
Speaker 1: fuel bill out and blaming them with behavior that actually
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with environmental activism. Some of the
Speaker 1: tribal groups in Montana who protested the bill that is
Speaker 1: currently making its way through that legislature a terrible, terrible
Speaker 1: bill max sentence of thirty years in prison. MAX finds
Speaker 1: of one point five million dollars if you are found
Speaker 1: linked to somebody who is arrested under those offenses. It's
Speaker 1: you know, an individual protester in Montana would be subject
Speaker 1: to a max five of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which is atrocious. That is way bigger than most of
Speaker 1: these states. The penalties in these states, which are draconian enough,
Speaker 1: tends to cap around like twenty or twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Montana has upping it to one hundred and fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: but times ten if you are found to be a
Speaker 1: supporter of a protest arrested. And of course Keystone xcit
Speaker 1: all cuts through at least one of the reservations in Montana,
Speaker 1: and I believe that's the Flathead Tribal Reservation. The wow.
Speaker 1: The bill was protested and committee by a lot of
Speaker 1: different indigenous peoples from different tribal nations and different Native
Speaker 1: organizations nonprofits in Montana, and they were all concerned not
Speaker 1: only about the ongoing fight over Keystone EXCEL, but just
Speaker 1: once the law is on the books, who knows what
Speaker 1: it will be used to punish people for in regard
Speaker 1: to any future infrastructure project. You know that qualified for
Speaker 1: critical infrastructure.
Speaker 3: And it's quite broad, right the definition of critical infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I would have to look at Montana's definitions
Speaker 1: again because all of the states are a little bit different,
Speaker 1: but roughly following the trend that was set forth by
Speaker 1: the State of Oklahoma and by the American Legislative Exchange
Speaker 1: Council's Model Bill. It includes utility infrastructure, electric transmission lines,
Speaker 1: It includes pipelines of all kinds. It includes water infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Some of them include dams in Louisiana, levies was attempted
Speaker 1: to be added to the definitions last year, which failed.
Speaker 1: From you know, gas compressor stations, refineries, export terminals, pretty
Speaker 1: much everything you can think of that as dirty energy
Speaker 1: infrastructure qualifies as critical under this bill.
Speaker 3: Right right. I do wonder how much some of these
Speaker 3: laws could be used to tamp down on various other
Speaker 3: types of protests, like the Black Lives Matter protests. Some
Speaker 3: new research done and I'm not sure if it's out
Speaker 3: there yet or not around some groups that have, you know,
Speaker 3: been looking at at what Gibson done has done in
Speaker 3: response both to indigenous tribes in Ecuador suing Chevron and
Speaker 3: to the Standing Rock protests against their client energy transfer
Speaker 3: partners and using RICO. I definitely hear echoes of in
Speaker 3: these in these anti protest laws, especially the recent ones
Speaker 3: where they're going after the quote unquote organizers.
Speaker 1: There's the plot thickens amy because in the bill that's
Speaker 1: currently being considered in Kansas, and it has already passed
Speaker 1: the Senate in Kansas, it actually has hearing in the
Speaker 1: House tomorrow, which is March seventeenth, that bill includes a
Speaker 1: RICO provision, and wow, I believe is the first overlap
Speaker 1: between corporations using racketeering anti mafia laws to go after
Speaker 1: their critics or attorneys or anything plaintiffs that inconvenience them
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be at these anti protests. The
Speaker 1: fossil fuel anti protest laws specifically, I believe RICO is
Speaker 1: also starting to creep into the broader trend of riot
Speaker 1: redefinition anti protesting laws where you find the lowest common
Speaker 1: denominator way to accuse somebody of rioting and then you
Speaker 1: get to charge them with very very serious felonies. And
Speaker 1: if some of these states succeed, you know, potentially racketeering
Speaker 1: implication as well, you know, as if the civil disobedience
Speaker 1: is organized crime.
Speaker 3: In very simple terms, that is the attempt that's underway
Speaker 3: is to redefine civil disobedience as organized crime, and people
Speaker 3: should know that the RICO laws were created to deal
Speaker 3: with the mob.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry, just like you know, even the more
Speaker 1: extreme and I I don't even want to use that
Speaker 1: word because there's no explosions or violence or threats involved.
Speaker 1: But like an activist cutting a fence or throwing a
Speaker 1: carpet over the razor wire and trespassing or even shutting
Speaker 1: off a pipeline valve, I'm sorry, that's not like walking
Speaker 1: into somebody's store and breaking their kneecaps for not paying
Speaker 1: their dues that Month's similar or even nearly as threatening
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 3: Do you have an account of how many states have
Speaker 3: enacted these laws and then how many are sort of
Speaker 3: in play right now?
Speaker 1: I do, Okay. There are a total of fourteen states
Speaker 1: that have so far passed the fossil Fuel Infrastructure anti
Speaker 1: protest bills since twenty seventeen. The most recent one was
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, but the fight actually started years previous,
Speaker 1: and that's Ohio. They just passed the law in January.
Speaker 1: That bill carried over from the previous year. After that,
Speaker 1: we've seen bills pop up in Minnesota for a grand
Speaker 1: total of six bill. I don't know, they're just really
Speaker 1: disorganized or what. Some of them are concurrent, so it's
Speaker 1: really it's basically for legislative packages in Minnesota in the
Speaker 1: form of six.
Speaker 3: Bills in MINESDA. That's really interesting to me in the
Speaker 3: context of the Line three protests right now. Is there
Speaker 3: any sense that, like the number of proposals or the
Speaker 3: movement on them it like recently, is connected to some
Speaker 3: sort of reaction to that protest.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I'm gonna say my gut tells
Speaker 1: me yes, because in twenty eighteen there was only one bill.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen there were two bills, and I believe
Speaker 1: they were they might have been concurrent. And in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty there were also two bills, and then suddenly this
Speaker 1: year there's six. There's also there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: difference between some of them. Some of the bills are
Speaker 1: more focused on the felonies for the individuals, including the
Speaker 1: loophole that you're trespassing on a fossil fuel infrastructure facility
Speaker 1: with the intent to impede or inhibit or in another bill,
Speaker 1: with the intent to disrupt the operation. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go ahead and say a aggressive prosecutor would slap me
Speaker 1: with a felony charge if I was sitting in front
Speaker 1: of a road because that would impede or inhibit the
Speaker 1: operation of the facility or disrupt the operation. So that's like,
Speaker 1: that's where the loophole is here, Right. They frame this
Speaker 1: as if it's about property damage, as if it's about violence.
Speaker 1: Guess what, All of that's are illegal everywhere it has
Speaker 1: been all of this nation's recent history and all of
Speaker 1: the state's recent history. You can't hurt people, you can't
Speaker 1: blow stuff up, you can't damage property, you can't trespass.
Speaker 1: There are laws on the books to deal with those things.
Speaker 1: So what these bills really aim to change, and the
Speaker 1: Minnesota bills illustrate it well, is that there is a
Speaker 1: loophole put in there that if you're disrupting or interrupt
Speaker 1: the facility in some minor way, you're on the hook
Speaker 1: for the same level felony offense that is normally reserved
Speaker 1: for somebody who is abusing or hurting another human being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it in.
Speaker 3: An important thing for people to understand that, Like, it's
Speaker 3: not like in the absence of these bills, there has
Speaker 3: just been you know, blanket permissiveness for trespassing and properties.
Speaker 1: Protesting. You know, the people in Standing Rock in addition
Speaker 1: to getting blasted by the cops water cannons and freezing
Speaker 1: cold temperatures and attacked by dogs and having their arms
Speaker 1: blown off by concussion grenades and stuff like that. Like
Speaker 1: you know, the people who are arrested can like trespassing
Speaker 1: those situations, they do end out having to get charged
Speaker 1: with things, and they do end up having to fight
Speaker 1: that out in court. And I know that for skeptics
Speaker 1: of like kind of protest culture and this like perhaps
Speaker 1: what's seen as a really self righteous liberalism stand up
Speaker 1: for what's right, that really irks some people. But I
Speaker 1: don't think they think about how the people who engage
Speaker 1: in acts of civil different disobedience really have a lot
Speaker 1: of shit to deal with after that happens or all
Speaker 1: these myself as an example, right, Like, people are annoyed
Speaker 1: that somebody like me, this college educated white kid like
Speaker 1: goes and protest the Keystone Excel pipeline in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven at the White House, which I did. It
Speaker 1: was a mass civil disobedience. We all got arrested. We
Speaker 1: went to jail. We didn't have to go to a cell.
Speaker 1: We just had to pay our one hundred dollars post
Speaker 1: and forfeit and we got to leave. You know, but
Speaker 1: in many of these situations, that is not what happens.
Speaker 1: You go to jail, you get held, you get out,
Speaker 1: you have to talk with lawyers, you have to show
Speaker 1: up for court hearings. You know, several months to several
Speaker 1: years of your life is potentially disrupted. Even if you
Speaker 1: don't end out going to prison or paying thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars and fines, you lose a lot of time and
Speaker 1: you lose a lot of money in order to take
Speaker 1: that principal stand. So it's not just a bunch of
Speaker 1: spoiled kids that don't have to deal with any consequence.
Speaker 1: They're really abusing, you know, major loopholes in our legal system.
Speaker 1: They are accepting those consequences, or the kind of higher
Speaker 1: calling of saying, no more fossil fuel infrastructure is not okay.
Speaker 1: More oil spills are not okay. More disruption to the
Speaker 1: sovereignty of indigenous nations whose treaties we have violated over
Speaker 1: and over and over again is not okay.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you you were saying there's there's four different
Speaker 3: legislative packages that are kind of in play in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Right, and they're all aimed in differing ways that felonies
Speaker 1: for individual violators as well as going after people affiliated
Speaker 1: with them as well. So you don't even necessarily have
Speaker 1: to commit the crimes. And this is you know, so
Speaker 1: if you're a Sierra Club or a Green Peace or
Speaker 1: any other organization maybe the American Civil Liberties Union, and
Speaker 1: you're you've like been on email threads with these activists,
Speaker 1: that raises the question, are you liable for the crimes
Speaker 1: commit Like a fool I met could go do something
Speaker 1: like spray paint a piece of equipment, and you know,
Speaker 1: that just strikes me as exceptionally unfair that I could
Speaker 1: possibly be held to account for that thing that I
Speaker 1: didn't give permission to be affiliated with and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have recommended in YadA YadA. So that's a big part
Speaker 1: of the problem with In Kansas, there is a similar bill,
Speaker 1: as I believe I said earlier, that has passed out
Speaker 1: of one of the legislative chambers and it has a
Speaker 1: hearing tomorrow. There are some groups locally opposing it. Kansas
Speaker 1: Interfaith Action has testified against the bill. The Kansas SIRA
Speaker 1: Club has testified against the bill, and showing up against them,
Speaker 1: of course, is the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, as
Speaker 1: well as the Wichita Regional Chamber. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and guess pretty much means Coke Industries and SESNA.
Speaker 1: I don't know who else in Wichita is a particularly
Speaker 1: large company, and I'm gonna go ahead and guess that
Speaker 1: CESSNA doesn't care about this law, so which is probably
Speaker 1: that the lobbyist did mention We've heard a lot from
Speaker 1: our members about this one, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet I can tell you which one the other
Speaker 1: bills are. In Montana, that law is being supported again
Speaker 1: by trade associations that represent many of the usual suspects
Speaker 1: trans Canada, Enbridge, Exon Mobile. It's the but it's being
Speaker 1: done through groups that are not quite so obviously. So
Speaker 1: in Montana, one of the groups that is supporting the
Speaker 1: anti protest law is called the Treasure, State Resource Association
Speaker 1: of Montana and State Resource Association, it turns out, represents
Speaker 1: oil and gas companies, among amongst others. I saw the
Speaker 1: American Chemistry Council is in there, and Bridge and exce
Speaker 1: on Mobile are members. And then Montana Petroleum Association also
Speaker 1: supporting the bill in Montana, and I believe it's pretty
Speaker 1: much the same oil companies that are the members of
Speaker 1: the Montana Petroleum Association as well the other states that
Speaker 1: are considering bills Alabama and Arkansas. And Alabama that bill
Speaker 1: has not yet moved. Arkansas's bill has passed in the
Speaker 1: House and is working its way through the Senate. I
Speaker 1: could not tell you in either of those states who
Speaker 1: is advocating for it. If those states disclose that information,
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find it. They certainly don't
Speaker 1: disclose it. And lobbying registrations, although I can't say that
Speaker 1: Coke has registered to lobby in both of those states
Speaker 1: I noticed. And then the kind of outlier, the state
Speaker 1: that I'm afraid will peak a little too much interest
Speaker 1: for some of the wrong reasons is Illinois. Because a
Speaker 1: Democrat is sponsoring the bill in Illinois, and that has
Speaker 1: been the situation in Illinois since the beginning. So in
Speaker 1: Illinois as well as Wisconsin, there has been a different
Speaker 1: strategy than has been used in most other states, and
Speaker 1: that is the oil industry appeals to local trade unions
Speaker 1: and the messaging in their hands. This is exactly what
Speaker 1: happened to Wisconsin. I'm not sure about Illinois. The American
Speaker 1: patrolluments to put messaging and talking points into the hands
Speaker 1: of the local trade unions, who then lobby Democrats in
Speaker 1: the legislature and championed the law that passed in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: In Illinois, I suspect the trend is similar because just
Speaker 1: in the last thirty six hours, in addition to Enbridge
Speaker 1: and the American Patrollum Institute and some Illinois based lobbying organizations,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of trade unions that have just
Speaker 1: signed on and support of the bill. In Illinois, they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be hearing today and I heard that this
Speaker 1: bill was taken out of the calendar for discussion. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I don't have more details, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it means I have no idea of what direction the
Speaker 1: bill is heading towards. I don't know if that indicates
Speaker 1: there's some sort of conflict or stall or if you know,
Speaker 1: it's just there was some procedural reason why they delayed.
Speaker 1: But I would keep my eyes out for Illinois. They
Speaker 1: tried to pass a lot in twenty nineteen. It went
Speaker 1: through one of the legislative chambers, but not the other.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure they're going to try and fight like
Speaker 1: hell again this year to get along in the books,
Speaker 1: because this is a third year in the row that
Speaker 1: they've they've tried pushing bills through Illinois.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. Thank you so much for spending his time
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Great, Thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: to chat.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's it for this time again. I will post
Speaker 3: links to other stories about these bills in the show notes.
Speaker 3: There will also be a story on the drillednews dot
Speaker 3: com website with more on these anti protests bills. We've
Speaker 3: covered this there a couple of other times in the
Speaker 3: past as well. If you know about something like this
Speaker 3: happening in your state, or you've heard interesting things about it,
Speaker 3: feel free to shoot me a line. You can reach
Speaker 3: me at Amy at drillednews dot com or on Twitter
Speaker 3: at Amy Westervelt or at we Are Drilled. If you
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Speaker 3: I am reporting the next narrative season, got a couple
Speaker 3: more interviews left to do on that. It's going to
Speaker 3: be a deep dive on natural gas, where that term
Speaker 3: came from, how it became the quote unquote bridge fuel,
Speaker 3: that the industry talks about it as today, and what
Speaker 3: it has to do with the plastics boom. Make sure
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Speaker 3: M