The fossil fuel industry plays a significant role in protest suppression and opposition, according to a report released by Greenpeace last month.
In a 78-page report, the Dollars vs. Democracy Report outlines the industry’s response to dissent concerning several major projects from 2014 to the present. The report found that “the fossil fuel industry has expanded its playbook to delay the transition to clean energy and protect its profits through efforts that undermine our right to free speech.”
While the report found coordination between the public and private sectors to monitor activism and criminalize nonviolent resistance, it also discovered that the strategy was not overwhelmingly successful.
Nationwide protests continue, and most states have not enacted anti-protest legislation. The independent campaign organization says oil and gas companies are responsible for strategies that thwart efforts to expose environmental problems and promote green solutions.
These strategies include lobbying for anti-protest laws and filing lawsuits against people and organizations that oppose fossil fuel expansion. The lawsuits are known as SLAPPs, an acronym for strategic lawsuit against public participation.
The report found that of the 116 SLAPPs filed since 2010, 86 were filed by companies such as ExxonMobil, Energy Transfer, Chevron, and TC Energy, each of which had also lobbied for anti-protest laws.
The Greenpeace report says the fossil fuel industry finds cooperation with law enforcement across the country and protestors are treated as if they are violent extremists. Oil and gas companies also have government allies who share their ideology and benefit financially through election spending and targeted payments.
“Americans overwhelmingly support government action on the climate crisis,” the report says. “As a result, the fossil fuel industry has expanded its playbook to delay the transition to clean energy and protect its profits through efforts that undermine our right to free speech.”
In response, the Dollars vs. Democracy Report offers ways to protect free speech. These actions include protecting the right to protest and dissent, reaffirming Indigenous sovereignty and providing redress for human rights violations, strengthening the rights of communities to defend themselves against the harms of the fossil fuel industry and preventing law enforcement from serving the interests of the fossil fuel industry over the interests of the general public.
To read the full report, click here.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
