EXCLUSIVE: How Greenpeace’s Pipeline Protests Ultimately Led It To The Brink Of Bankruptcy

Greenpeace’s 2016 and 2017 protest campaign against ⚡Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access Pipeline was one of the group’s most celebrated and popular initiatives. Nine years later, that very crusade has brought the legacy green group to its knees.

A North Dakota jury ruled March 19 that Greenpeace is liable for $667 million in damages payable to ⚡Energy Transfer, the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline and target of the group’s organized activism in 2016 and 2017. Led by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP’s Trey Cox, Energy Transfer has Greenpeace on the verge of having to shutter its U.S. operations thanks to the protests that supporters once hailed as a heroic stand against the oil industry and the first Trump administration, as Cox explained to the DCNF.

A number of prominent officials and figures lined up behind the anti-pipeline activists as they disrupted construction, lending credibility and cover to the movement. Among them were the Democratic Socialists of America, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, the late Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva as well as former Democratic Hawaii Rep. — and current Director of National Intelligence — Tulsi Gabbard, among others.

‘Anything That They Could’

For starters, Cox said that Greenpeace’s branding of its involvement in the demonstrations as “indigenous-led” was misleading because the group brought in paid indigenous activists from outside North Dakota to participate in actions against the pipeline’s construction.

“Greenpeace says they did this in solidarity with the indigenous tribe and that it was indigenous-led, but the tribe there is the Standing Rock Sioux. Greenpeace didn’t do anything with the Standing Rock Sioux,” Cox said. “Instead, they paid indigenous professional protesters from California and from Canada and from other locations to come. They flew them there. They paid them. They gave them a stipend to organize and train and teach people how to cause more problems and create more delay for the pipeline.”

“Greenpeace paid trainers, meaning professional protesters, to come into Standing Rock. Then they supplied a huge training tent, and they sent these things called ‘lock boxes,’ which are mechanisms that you can use to attach yourself to people, or you can use to attach yourself to equipment, and you have to be cut off,” Cox told the DCNF. “They coordinated attacks on the Dakota Access Pipeline during construction. For example, one third of a group of protesters would go and block one road, another third would go to block another road and then the last third would go up the right of way where the pipeline is getting constructed and do destructive things to the equipment or to the pipeline itself.”

Specifically, activists linked to or trained by Greenpeace-paid protesters would cut wires, put sand in the gas tanks of various machines, vandalize equipment by painting over windows and more, Cox said. In effect, the hardline protesters would do “anything that they could do to stop the construction of this pipeline.”

Destroying and damaging equipment was part of a broader effort to interfere with the company’s contractual obligations and cause even more financial harm beyond costs incurred repairing gear, Cox explained.

“They figured out that we had shipping contracts that were due on January 1 of 2017, and so they were doing anything that they could do to interfere with our ability to complete this pipeline and then miss being able to ship the product, the crude oil, along the pipeline because that would cause us financial harm, both in terms of our customers and in terms of our ability to convert the financing from debt into more favorable bond structure,” Cox told the DCNF.

‘Jury Was Absolutely Unequivocal’

All told, the destructive actions that protesters took against the pipeline’s construction cost ⚡Energy Transfer approximately $150 million or more, Cox told the DCNF. The firm had to pony up $80 million out of pocket to cover property damage and the additional time of work crews delayed by activist-induced construction setbacks, and refinancing forced by the disruptions added about $70 million in unexpected interest and payments.

Harder to quantify is the damage caused to the firm by defamatory claims levied against it in the public square, as well as Greenpeace’s insistence that ⚡Energy Transfer sued the group to silence First Amendment-protected activity using a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” (SLAPP). Shortly after the verdict came down, Greenpeace and some of its top officials put out statements and an op-ed decrying the verdict as an attack on free speech.

Despite the group’s claims, Cox says that the unanimous jury verdict against Greenpeace completely undermines any such argument.

“They try to wrap this up and say that this is Big Oil trying to stop them. We said throughout that we are all in favor of people exercising their First Amendment rights, their lawful right to petition, their lawful right to protest, but what Greenpeace did went beyond that. When you become destructive in your protest and you attack the pipeline and you attack the equipment and you attack the people, that’s not First Amendment-protected free speech, that stuff is unacceptable. Similarly, when you tell malicious lies, then there’s no First Amendment protection for that. The jury was absolutely unequivocal about that,” Cox told the DCNF. “The actions by Greenpeace are unacceptable by our societal standards and norms, and continuing to say that it’s a SLAPP suit is just counterfactual propaganda. There is zero to support it, and quite frankly, I can’t believe that they’re continuing to maintain it in the face of the unanimous jury verdict on every single claim we had against them. It’s insane.”

Greenpeace says that it will appeal the ruling and keep the case alive, and its international arm will sue ⚡Energy Transfer in the Netherlands to fight back as well. Cox dismissed Greenpeace’s Netherlands suit as “solely and purely a fundraising propaganda play.”

“As far as the lawsuit that they have in the Netherlands, that is a complete publicity stunt,” Cox said. “You can say all you want that it’s a SLAPP suit or that we don’t have a basis for it, but once you make it past a motion to dismiss or past the motion for summary judgment, you’re not dealing with a SLAPP suit anymore.”

Cox told the DCNF that he has received numerous calls from people in the oil and gas industry inquiring about the case and whether they may be able to pursue similar actions in the wake of the Greenpeace verdict.

“I’m getting a number of calls and questions about what happened in this case. ‘How did you do this? Is this something that might apply to us?’” Cox said. “I’m getting calls from the oil and gas industry, and I’m getting calls from any number of other industries that have been similarly affected.”

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot Greenpeace USA/YouTube)

All content created by the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].