{"id":3075,"date":"2024-06-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www-prod.greenpeace.org\/usa\/campaign-updates\/3075\/energy-transfer-lawsuit-story\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T07:42:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:42:32","slug":"energy-transfer-lawsuit-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/energy-transfer-lawsuit-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Energy Transfer’s $300 Million Lawsuit, and Why It Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Energy Transfer wants to shut us up, but we\u2019ve never been very good at doing that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Dakota
People march in support of the Standing Rock Nation at the Civic Center Plaza of San Francisco. The protest was one of many in a global day of action against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cancel the permit for the project.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In February 2025, Greenpeace USA is scheduled to go to trial in North Dakota. We are being sued by Energy Transfer \u2013 the operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline \u2013 for nearly $300 million related to the 2016 protests at Standing Rock. A loss in this trial could threaten to put Greenpeace on the sidelines of the fight for climate justice right at the moment when we need to fight even harder for a green and peaceful future.<\/span><\/p>\n

The stakes are high, and not just for Greenpeace USA as an organization. This trial is testing out dangerous legal tactics that, if successful, could be widely applied against protesters, and indeed, anyone who speaks out or criticizes a deep-pocketed corporation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter what happens, Greenpeace is not going away. But this legal threat is very real, and we see it as our duty to fight this lawsuit not just for ourselves, but for future activists who might be similarly targeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Energy Transfer wants to shut us up, but we\u2019ve never been very good at doing that. Here is the story of this lawsuit and why it matters for all of us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Story of Standing Rock<\/strong><\/h2>\n

2008 was the year that the fracking boom kicked into high gear. That was the year <\/span>Sarah Palin said \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d<\/span><\/a> \u2013 and even though she lost that election, the U.S. government has basically followed the Palin Plan ever since. In fact, <\/span>U.S. oil production has more than doubled<\/span><\/a> since that year, making the U.S. the <\/span>world\u2019s largest oil producer \u2026 ever<\/span><\/a>. This boom has also spurred the construction of pipelines, export terminals and other infrastructure, all of which lock us into more fossil fuel dependence, <\/span>harm nearby communities<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>undermine the slow progress we are making on meeting the Paris Agreement goals<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In North Dakota\u2019s Bakken oil field, the fracking boom led to <\/span>skyrocketing oil production<\/span><\/a>, and soon the oil industry needed an easier method of getting its product to oil refineries and <\/span>global markets<\/span><\/a>. So in 2014, <\/span>Energy Transfer and its partners proposed the Dakota Access Pipeline<\/span><\/a> (DAPL) that would carry Bakken crude from North Dakota to Illinois, and then down to the Gulf Coast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the very start, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with other Sioux Nations, opposed the pipeline. Tribal chairman Dave Archambault <\/span>put the pipeline in historical perspective<\/span><\/a>: \u201cWhether it\u2019s gold from the Black Hills or hydropower from the Missouri or oil pipelines that threaten our ancestral inheritance, the tribes have always paid the price for America\u2019s prosperity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n