Fossil fuel companies and trade groups are using essential pipeline safety legislation to further criminalize pipeline protests.
By Emily Sanders, The Lever
At the urging of their fossil fuel donors, lawmakers are quietly working to massively expand criminal penalties against people who protest pipelines as part of negotiations over essential new federal pipeline safety regulations.
Congress is negotiating the pipeline safety legislation, a reauthorization of the Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration program, in the wake of disastrous carbon dioxide pipeline leaks that have endangered nearby communities, stumped emergency responders, and left residents with health issues for years to come. In total, 124 new oil, gas, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide pipelines have been announced or are in the preconstruction or construction phase in the U.S., according to data from fossil fuel infrastructure tracker Oil and Gas Watch.
The federal penalty for damaging or destroying interstate pipelines is already a felony charge mandating up to 20 years in prison. But the industry’s proposed additions, described in executives’ congressional testimony and policy briefs posted online, would widen the definition of and punishment for “attacks” on pipelines using vague language that could implicate a far broader set of activities used to protest fossil fuel infrastructure. Such language has already begun to make its way into the legislative effort to reauthorize the pipeline safety administration as Congress decides the agency’s funding and legislative mandates for the next few years.
Recent Posts
Trump Suggests US Bombed ‘Big Facility’ in Venezuela. No One Seems to Know What He’s Talking About
Take Action Now Administration officials have yet to provide any details about the supposed strike, which would mark a massive escalation in the…
Nigerian Village Bombed by Trump Has ‘No Known History’ of Anti-Christian Terrorism, Locals Say
Take Action Now “Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of…
How Effective Are Protests? Historians Say: Very.
Take Action Now Protests change the protesters, their communities and the nation. From emancipation to women’s suffrage, civil rights and BLM, mass…
The United States’ Hidden History Of Regime Change—Revisited
Take Action Now The truculent trio—Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio—do Venezuela.By Barbara Koeppel, The Nation Since the early 20th century, the United…