From the plains of the Dakotas to the woods of Pennsylvania, environmental activists have an extreme strategy, funded by billionaires. Their goal is not to fix any flaws, but to shut down all new pipelines. This threatens the safe delivery of natural gas to heat our homes, schools, and hospitals, and the gasoline used to drive us to work and pick up our kids from school.
To create an illusion of grassroots support, activists hide behind local-sounding “nonprofits.” But a centrally coordinated group gives them tens of millions of dollars, plus synchronized communication, public relations, and litigation strategy. The result is a guerrilla warfare strategy, as vigilantes pop up in unexpected places, deliberately blocking America’s long-awaited goal of energy independence.
At the heart are foundations created by billionaires like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Tides Foundation (heavily funded by the Google Foundation), and the Hewlett Foundation. The project is named the “Beyond Oil Campaign;” centered in San Francisco, and it is headed by a firm named CorpEthics which bragged that the goal is “to block all proposed pipelines.”
They even embrace the label “radical.” In their own words, “The goal of this campaign is to radically reduce the production, transport, and ultimately the supply of domestic oil in North America.”
They oppose pipelines all over the U.S. and Canada. The Canadian think tank Frontier Centre for Public Policy calculated that 104 groups received at least $25-million in anti-pipeline activism grants plus $15-million more in unspecified grants from the project since 2009.
Another report claims the “Tides Foundation gave $36 million to more than 100 organizations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe” and “the Hewlett Foundation has given $90 million to First Nations and environmental groups in British Columbia and the western U.S. … More than 60 groups also get behind-the-scenes and ghost-writing support from NetChange, a private American company funded to ‘support and amplify’ the campaign.”
The CorpsEthics plan goes beyond buying support from smaller groups; it also includes major partners like the National Resources Defense Council, World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project, Indigenous Environmental Network, Greenpeace, EarthJustice, and Environmental Defense Fund.
These groups have made it easy for activists to hinder pipeline development. MoveOn.org hosts a plethora of material targeted to halt individual projects, including major pipeline projects like Keystone XL, Dakota Access, and Mariner East. Headlines on Greenpeace’s website read “Join the wave of resistance” and “How to stop a pipeline in 4 steps.”
Yet contrary to radicals’ claims, pipelines have the best capacity to safely deliver the energy our country needs. The U.S. boasts a network of 2.4-million miles of pipe, akin to the blood vessels which supply the human body. The American Petroleum Institute reports that 99.999% of pipeline oil arrives safely without incident. But capacity must expand to serve a growing economy and population, plus increased production to create energy independence and prosperity.
Despite the pipeline industry’s impressive safety record, activists keep flooding courts and local officials with complaints. Some chain themselves to equipment or vandalize property. One favored tactic even recruits Native American tribes to be the nominal and sympathetic plaintiffs in lawsuits.
The topper is pressure tactics urging banks to cut off funding for pipelines. Seattle’s left-wing city council in 2017 pulled the city’s business from Wells Fargo Bank because it was a pipeline lender. Only when other banks refused to fill the gap did the city resume doing business with Wells Fargo.
A recently released report from the GAIN Coalition (“Grow America’s Infrastructure Now”) describes these unlawful tactics, including ways to hold protesters accountable if they pressure banks to breach their contracts with pipeline developers.
President Trump’s just-issued executive order seeks to limit protesters’ abuses of federal regulations. But that cannot solve all the problems, nor can it undo the damage already done. The CorpsEthics group already brags about multiple canceled pipelines, which the Canadian Oil Producers says has cost $100-billion a year to Canada’s economy alone.
Other officials must also help to meet Americans’ energy needs, and many are stepping up. Last month, South Dakota passed legislation allowing the state to seek reimbursements from “riot boosting” protesters. Missouri and Indiana are considering stiffer penalties for trespassing and vandalism of critical infrastructure, including pipelines.
It’s time to shine a light on the billionaire-funded radicals, before they leave everyday people in the cold and the dark.
Ernest Istook (@Istook) is a former congressman from Oklahoma and is president of Americans for Less Regulation.
