Dakota pipeline owner sues Greenpeace
THE COMPANY behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, which drew international attention for potentially endangering the water supply of Native American tribes in the Dakotas, accused Greenpeace and other environmental activists who helped organise protests of ecoterrorism, racketeering and other crimes.
By filing a lawsuit against the activists in US District Court in North Dakota last Tuesday, the Dallas-based oil and gas company, Energy Transfer Partners, became the second firm to accuse Greenpeace of breaking a federal organised crime law used to try members of the Mafia, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, or RICO Act.
Last year, a Canadian logging company, Resolute Forest Products, filed a RICO suit against Greenpeace after the environmental group mounted a multi-media campaign against the company for harvesting trees in Canada’s sensitive boral forests.
As part of that campaign, Greenpeace branded Resolute a “forest destroyer.”
In their respective lawsuits, Energy Transfer Partners and Resolute are being represented by Kasowitz, Benson & Torres, a law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, President Donald Trump’s long-time attorney who was sidelined recently in the Russia investigations.
Greenpeace defended its activism, accusing the law firm’s lawyers of being “corporate mercenaries willing to abuse the legal system to silence legitimate advocacy work,” according Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace USA.
The lawsuit was filed against both Greenpeace’s US chapter and the international umbrella organisation, Greenpeace International.
“This is the second consecutive year Donald Trump’s go-to attorneys at the Kasowitz law firm have filed a meritless lawsuit against Greenpeace,” Wetterer said in a statement.
He added that the complaint “repackages spurious allegations and legal claims made against Greenpeace by the Kasowitz firm on behalf of Resolute.”
Rodrigo Estrada, a Greenpeace USA spokesman, said the group has not “been served papers yet.”
President Trump injected new life into the oil infrastructure project through an executive order in January, only four days after taking office.
A month earlier, the Army Corps of Engineers under President Barack Obama shut down construction of the final piece of the pipeline under Lake Oahe, near the border between North and South Dakota, to consider alternative routes. But Trump’s revival put the pipeline on track to begin pumping by June.
The Obama administration’s decision to halt construction followed months of protests from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other Native American groups over concerns the 1,172mile pipeline, meant to deliver Bakken shale oil to Midwestern refineries, would imperil drinking water and disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites.