The federal government infiltrated anti-fracking activists before a lease sale in May, and the environmentalists are accusing the government of working on behalf of fossil fuel companies.
The Intercept reported Tuesday that emails show federal agents and local law enforcement officers went undercover to investigate how environmentalists planned to disrupt an oil and natural gas lease sale in Lakewood, Colo. According to the report, multiple undercover officers infiltrated the groups to keep tabs on the protest.
Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Marissa Knodel said the maneuver was “shameful.”
“It is shameful for the federal government to collaborate with the fossil fuel industry to target protesters peacefully protecting public lands and waters,” she said. “The Keep it in the Ground movement demands President Obama take the action necessary to achieve the climate targets he agreed to in Paris.
“Yet this administration continue to contradict its own climate rhetoric by holding new fossil fuel auctions and declaring natural gas a ‘bridge fuel’ to clean energy.”
While the protests were peaceful and there were no disruptions to the oil and gas lease sale, past lease sales have been stopped due to activists’ vehement protests.
Lawmakers are pushing the administration to move oil and gas lease sales online to avoid any potential disruptions from environmentalists, including a bipartisan bill introduced to force the Interior Department to hold an online lease sale within the next year.
Interior has been reluctant to agree to push lease sales online so quickly.
Knodel said Interior and the Bureau of Land Management should resist attempts to put the lease sales online.
“Instead of wasting time and resources spying on nonviolent citizens, the Obama administration should listen to the people on the front lines of climate change,” she said. “Instead of hiding fossil fuel auctions by moving them online, the Obama administration should keep fossil fuels in the ground.”
