$300 Million Lawsuit Targets Greenpeace for Damage to Dakota Access Pipeline

This is what Greenpeace funded on “sacred Indian lands in 2016

The recent spate of anti-Israel demonstrations at college campuses could cause déjà vu for North Dakotans who endured the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016. Like many of the campus protests, the pipeline protests were funded and fueled by big outside groups who showed little concern for the damaging impacts of their actions.

Now, a lawsuit being heard this summer is designed to hold some of these groups responsible for their dangerous actions. Energy Transfer, the owner and operator of the pipeline, is suing Greenpeace and other instigators for $300 million for the damages sustained by the company as a result of these protests. The lawsuit holds that these environmental activists spent months spreading false information about the pipeline project and helped fund out-of-state agitators who attacked law enforcement and damaged property during the protests.

In the eight years since the pipeline protests, much has been learned a lot about the real nature of these demonstrations and the actual goals of the groups behind them. Well-known and heavily funded conflict groups like Greenpeace have a sophisticated playbook they follow to manipulate media coverage and inflict financial damage on their opponents, which they then use for fundraising to expand future operations.