bayou pipeline
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see activist and press suppression ETP
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">idle no more; indig women of the americas defense mother earth</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">declaration of rights of indig ppl
</font><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">720</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">desmog</font></div><div><div class="views-field views-field-body" style="font-size: 14px; overflow: inherit; font-family: "open sans", sans-serif;"><div class="field-content"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">Louisiana state appeals court has ruled that the Bayou Bridge Pipeline Company illegally <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/appeals-court-rules-bayou-bridge-pipeline-company-trampled" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">“trampled” on the rights of landowners</a> by starting pipeline construction without the landowners’ permission. The pipeline company must pay the landowners $10,000 each plus attorneys fees.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>This is a victory not only for us but for all landowners,” <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/appeals-court-rules-bayou-bridge-pipeline-company-trampled" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">said</a> Theda Larson Wright, one of the three Louisiana landowners who <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/opposition-bayou-bridge-pipelines-eminent-domain-lawsuit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">sued</a> Bayou Bridge Pipeline Company (<span class="caps" style="font-size: 0.9em;">BBP</span>) in September 2018. “All over the country, pipeline companies have destroyed people's land, often without even attempting to get permission, and dared the landowners to speak up. Well, we did. I hope this victory will encourage many others to as well.”</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/07/17/energy-transfer-bayou-bridge-pipeline-trampled-rights-louisiana-landowners" style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">READ MOR</a><span style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase;">e</span></p></div></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-louisiana-lawmakers-stop-residents-efforts-to-fight-big-oil-and-gas" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.propublica.org/article/how-louisiana-lawmakers-stop-residents-efforts-to-fight-big-oil-and-gas</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Malaika Favorite, daughter of the late environmental advocate Amos Favorite Sr., in Geismar, Louisiana. Geismar tried to incorporate industrial plants into a new city but was blocked from doing so by the Louisiana Legislature. (Sophia Germer/The Times-Picayune and The Advocate)</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">POLLUTER’S PARADISE</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>How Louisiana Lawmakers Stop Residents’ Efforts to Fight Big Oil and Gas</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana has pioneered ways for other states to discourage environmental protests around “critical infrastructure” projects. Much of it can be traced back to efforts by corporate lobbyists.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Sara Sneath, The Times-Picayune and The Advocate Feb. 7, 2 p.m. EST</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SERIES:POLLUTER’S PARADISE</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Impact in Louisiana</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced in partnership with The Times-Picayune and The Advocate, which was a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in 2019.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As the Bayou Bridge Pipeline</b> was under construction in 2018, Anne White Hat ventured deep into the Atchafalaya Swamp in St. Martin Parish to protest it.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">St. Martin is one of 11 parishes crossed by the pipeline, which brings crude oil from Texas to refineries in Louisiana. Though White Hat had permission to be there from some of the more than 100 people who jointly own the tract where she held her protest, she didn’t have permission from all. She was arrested on two felony counts related to trespassing. She posted a $21,000 bond and was released.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years later, the district attorney still hasn’t decided whether to proceed with the charges: two counts of unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure. The maximum penalty is five years in prison, with the possibility of hard labor and a fine of up to $1,000.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It is intimidating when you’re looking at facing prison in South Louisiana,” she said.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ironically, a court later found that the pipeline company itself had been trespassing at the time of White Hat’s arrest. The main owner, Energy Transfer Partners, had not obtained easement agreements with all landowners to begin construction, nor had it been granted permission to do so through eminent domain. Its penalty: a $450 fine paid to the landowners.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The judge who set White Hat’s bond at $21,000 was the same judge who imposed Energy Transfer Partners’ fine.“This is yet one more in a long line of examples of how Louisiana laws are first made by oil and gas corporations and then are ignored by the same corporations if they feel like it,” said Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University who is representing White Hat pro bono.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Louisiana has blazed a trail for other states in discouraging environmental protests by raising the legal stakes for those who trespass on or near “critical” oil and gas infrastructure — which includes refineries, chemical plants and ports. In 2004, it was the first state to make that crime a felony.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Louisiana’s pioneering law can be traced to corporate lobbyists. BP and DuPont were among the energy and chemical companies that produced a 2003 guide disseminated to state officials, arguing that enhanced penalties would discourage attacks by terrorists that could cause economic disruptions.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Two years ago, legislators added oil and gas pipelines to the list of infrastructure deemed critical. In White Hat’s view, the entire suite of laws is anti-democratic. “They’re using the state to protect their corporate interests,” she said.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Residents have repeatedly pushed back against pipelines, proposed plants and existing industry in their backyards. While such opposition is almost never monolithic, it is often overwhelming at the local level. But the state’s elected leaders have historically sided with industry, in some cases passing new laws aimed at quelling opposition.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[A sign marks the area of a pipeline in the Atchafalaya Basin, the same swamp where Anne White Hat protested the Bayou Bridge Pipeline in 2018. (Brett Duke/The Times-Picayune and The Advocate)]</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legislators are trying to reduce local officials’ power to decide whether to exempt industry from local taxes. Years ago, when a local board made up of experts filed an ambitious lawsuit that aimed to hold oil and gas companies accountable for damaging coastal wetlands, state officials undermined it. In another episode, they passed a law that barred communities from using incorporation to collect property taxes from chemical plants. And more than once they have sought to punish student law clinics that represent communities fighting industry.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This year’s legislative session, which begins in March, will again include bills to restrict local input into industrial tax exemptions.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of these efforts are part of a larger, coordinated strategy. The three Louisiana lawmakers who sponsored the trespassing bill were members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a controversial organization that brings lawmakers and corporate lobbyists together to draft “model legislation” that they then shop to other states.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Louisiana’s 2004 trespassing law became just such a template. Fifteen years later, 10 states have similar laws. “Louisiana was a particularly important state,” said Connor Gibson, an investigator with Greenpeace.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The addition of pipelines to the law two years ago came in response to protests that garnered national attention, notably those at Standing Rock in North Dakota, which became the focal point of indigenous protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. “This just protects against those who want to inhibit commerce,<b>” bill sponsor Rep. Major Thibaut said as he introduced the bill in 2018....</b></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">digging up pvt land w/o permission</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">---</font></div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bayou-bridge-pipeline-in-louisiana-2604017723.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Major Victory': Landowner's Legal Challenge Halts Construction of Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana</font></a></h1><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2604017723" data-authors="Common Dreams" data-headline="'Major Victory': Landowner's Legal Challenge Halts Construction of Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><div class="widget__brief"><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Jessica Corbett</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/labucketbrigade/videos/575095489591983/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">major victory</a>" for local landowners and pipeline activists who <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/10/anti-pipeline-kayaktivists-hit-felony-charges-under-louisianas-new-alec-inspired-law" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">are fighting to block</a> the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/15/enraged-opponents-vow-nonviolent-resistance-after-louisiana-pipeline-approved" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Bayou Bridge Pipeline</a> in Louisiana, the company behind the project agreed to halt construction on a patch of private property just ahead of a court hearing that was <a href="http://www.labucketbrigade.org/blog/media-advisory-judge-hear-landowners%E2%80%99-case-against-bayou-bridge-pipeline-over-unpermitted" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; overflow-wrap: break-word;">scheduled</a> for Monday morning....</font></p></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">astroturf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> bs news</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">lots of cute white ppl with hardhats and clipboards</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no names at all</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">front for </font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="text-align: right; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact: (202) 870-7715</font></span></div><div><span style="text-align: right; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="text-align: right; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">600 penn ave? suite 900?</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">USBancorp, parent of U.S. Bank, announced at their 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders their new “2017 Environmental Responsibility Policy.” The policy expressly prohibits the bank from financing oil and natural gas pipeline projects. It further subjects new and existing business banking customers who provide construction, equipment, supplies or services to energy infrastructure to discriminatory heightened scrutiny of their policies and practices. This misguided action affects millions of American workers who work hard every day to provide construction, equipment, supplies, logistics, professional services and technology to improve and expand our nation’s energy infrastructure.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman" /><div style=""><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font size="4" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Extremists Trespass </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Duke Energy CEO’s Home</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Non-profit opposing Enbridge Line 3 replacement pipeline<b> threatens violence </b>if project is approved</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Proposed Minnesota law targets those who train or recruit protesters who damage pipelines</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Criminal Vandals</b> Damage Sunoco Mariner East II Construction Equipment</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Equipment Vandalism on Bayou Bridge Project</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><pre style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);">Domain Name: ENERGYBUILDERS.ORG
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">link to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-environment-of-destruction-1502403603?mod=e2fb</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Environment of Destruction</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Criminal tactics have become a regular feature of pipeline protests over the past year.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Jillian Kay Melchior</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Aug. 10, 2017 6:20 p.m. ET</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In front of an Iowa government building, two women admitted to an eight-month campaign of arson, vandalism and sabotage targeting the Dakota Access Pipeline. “Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken,” said Ruby Montoya, 27. “We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But Ms. Montoya and her cohort, 35-year-old Jessica Reznicek, admitted they had engaged in election-night arson that destroyed several pieces of heavy machinery and caused as much as $2.5 million in damage....</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Karen Savage, an <a href="http://karensavage.net/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">award-winning</a> investigative reporter, did not expect to be arrested as she covered Energy Transfer Partners’ controversial construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline through Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, a river swamp bigger than the Florida Everglades.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>We were on land that the pipeline company doesn’t even claim to have,</b>” she said, adding that<b> she had permission in writing from the property owner to be there</b>. “I didn’t think there was really any risk at all.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Savage, a freelance reporter who <a href="https://www.journalism.cuny.edu/faculty/karen-savage/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">teaches</a> at the City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism, has <a href="http://karensavage.net/about/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">previously covered</a> the <span class="caps">BP</span> oil spill and <a href="https://jjie.org/2016/07/11/savage-arrested/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">environmental justice</a> issues. Truthout describes her as “embedded” with L’eau Est La Vie protest camp, which opposes the pipeline.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>She now faces “critical infrastructure” trespass charges, as do over half a dozen others recently arrested near Bayou Bridge construction. These felony charges come under a newly minted Louisiana law modeled after “critical infrastructure” laws in other states, which have been criticized as efforts to criminalize oil and gas pipeline protests</b>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Louisiana’s first felony trespass arrests </b>came on August 9, when three people <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/water-protectors-charged-with-felonies-under-louisianas-anti-protest-law/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">kayaking</a> through waters adjoining Bayou Bridge construction were charged under the new law, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/10/anti-pipeline-kayaktivists-hit-felony-charges-under-louisianas-new-alec-inspired-law" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to pipeline opponents</a> who said the kayakers were paddling in public waterways. And three more people were arrested the same day as Savage, <a href="http://truthout.org/articles/water-protectors-charged-with-felonies-under-louisianas-anti-protest-law/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to Truthout</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Early Monday morning, a Bayou Bridge activist who identifies as a “water protector” was <b><a href="https://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2018/08/21/louisiana-water-protector-tased-after-life-line-to-skypod-cut-by-bayou-bridge-workers/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tased</a> and arrested</b> after being forced from a “skypod,” a device similar to the tripods sometimes used in civil disobedience campaigns. That person was charged and held on $10,000 bail, according to a statement put out by local activists.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like many who opposed Energy Transfer Partners’ <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota</a>, Bayou Bridge opponents identify themselves as water protectors. Some of those opposed to Bayou Bridge have engaged in <a href="http://www.insidesources.com/protesters-in-louisiana-take-to-treesitting-kayaks-to-stop-bayou-bridge-pipeline/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">tree-sits</a> as a form of civil disobedience.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trespassing Near 'Critical Infrastructure'</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Traditionally, trespass charges are relatively low-level crimes often punishable by little more than a fine.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/30/tigerswan-lisa-smith-security-license-louisiana-bayou-bridge-pipeline" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">law turning trespassing</a> — if it’s near “critical infrastructure” or construction sites for critical infrastructure — into a felony carrying a sentence of up to five years went into effect on August 1</b>. It specifically amended the Louisiana criminal code to include oil and gas pipelines under the definition of “critical infrastructure,” and included “conspiracy” charges to enter or damage these sites with harsh penalties both in terms of prison time and fines.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Energy Transfer Partners</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, the company building the Bayou Bridge pipeline, supported the bill elevating “critical infrastructure” trespassing to a felony</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, a </span><a href="http://katc.com/news/2018/04/24/house-bill-that-criminalizes-conspiracy-to-trespass-at-pipeline-other-infrastructure-sites-headed-to-full-senate/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">local <span class="caps">ABC</span> News affiliate reported in April</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span></font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another <span class="caps">ALEC</span> Bill Now Law</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Louisiana law is <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/12/11/alec-model-bill-pipeline-protesters" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">similar to a bill</a> pushed nationwide by the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-legislative-exchange-council" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council (<span class="caps">ALEC</span>)</a></b>, a corporate-funded bill mill whose members include oil and gas companies like Chesapeake Energy and Continental Resources. Energy Transfer Partners has twice supported <span class="caps">ALEC</span>’s annual conferences, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations#cite_note-155" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to</a> Sourcewatch.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Part of the reason that trespass charges are rarely serious is that it can be a complex legal issue to sift out who exactly owns a piece of land, especially if ownership is disputed. <b>The owners of land where Bayou Bridge construction is currently underway have said that the company never obtained an easement or seized their property through eminent domain, meaning that they believe the construction is illegal</b>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bayou Bridge opponents predicted that the bill would be used to target their campaigns — particularly if there’s a risk of being arrested for a felony even when you reasonably believe you are not trespassing.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Clearly the purpose is to chill lawful dissent,” New Orleans-based environmental activist Meg Logue <a href="https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_4e66771a-47fb-11e8-8200-6f137b5783f1.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told The Advocate</a>in April.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other reports of police misconduct and the blurring of the lines between public officials and private security at Bayou Bridge sites drew a warning from lawyers from three prominent civil liberties organizations in late July.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Police stood by while company “[c]onstruction workers [used] chainsaws on the very trees these individuals are sitting in</b>,” William P. Quigley, law professor and director of the Loyola Law Clinic; Pam Spees, senior staff attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights; and Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center wrote in a <a href="https://cldc.org/news/lawyer-response-to-etps-reckless-mistreatment-of-protesters-at-the-leau-est-la-vie-pipeline-resistance-camp/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">July 28 letter</a> to Louisiana’s governor. <b>“We also have reports that various state employees from the Department of Public Safety, Corrections, and Probation and Parole are working as private security in this matter.”</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DeSmog has <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/21/wyoming-alec-model-bill-pipeline-protests" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">previously reported</a> that legislatures in at least three other states have begun considering laws similar to <span class="caps">ALEC</span>’s model bill. So far this year, “critical infrastructure” bills have passed either the state House or Senate in <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/21/bill-banning-pipeline-sabotage-critical-infrastructure-passes-iowa-senate/354510002/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Iowa</a>, <a href="https://www.pasenategop.com/blog/senate-approves-regan-critical-infrastructure-trespass-bill/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Pennsylvania</a>, <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2017/03/02/oklahoma-bill-to-protect-critical-infrastructure-could-curb-public-protest-critics-say/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Oklahoma</a>, and <a href="https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/this_just_in/article_b83cf275-c9be-5385-b981-12595601bb54.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wyoming</a>. Similar bills have also been introduced in states including <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?181+sum+SB828" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Virginia</a>, <a href="http://www.nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A03987&term=0&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York</a>, <a href="https://www.billtrack50.com/BillDetail/934991" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Ohio</a>, and <a href="https://www.kare11.com/article/news/mn-bill-to-penalize-protesters-clears-hurdle/89-532933032" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Minnesota</a>, and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/02/ohio-iowa-pipeline-protest-critical-infrastructure-bills/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Colorado and Washington</a> state have also considered related measures.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/water-protectors-take-action-to-keep-pipeline-out-of-black-and-indigenous-communities-20180814">https://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/water-protectors-take-action-to-keep-pipeline-out-of-black-and-indigenous-communities-20180814</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-2566981602.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-2566981602.html</a>
</font><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div class="new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 15px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.7px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/17/energy-transfer-partners-pipelines-leaked-once-every-11-days-greenpeace-report">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/17/energy-transfer-partners-pipelines-leaked-once-every-11-days-greenpeace-report</a></span></font></div><div class="new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix" style="overflow: hidden; margin: 15px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.7px; background-color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
</span></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="print-link" /></font><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="min-height: 280px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>5,475 days, 527 pipeline spills: that's the math presented in a new report from environmental groups Greenpeace <span class="caps">USA</span> and the Waterkeeper Alliance examining pipelines involving <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dakota Access</a> builder Energy Transfer Partners (<span class="caps">ETP</span>). It's based on public data from 2002 to 2017.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>All told, those leaks released 3.6 million gallons of hazardous liquids, including 2.8 million gallons of crude oil, according to data collected from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (<span class="caps">PHMSA</span>).</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That doesn't include an additional 2.4 million gallons of “drilling fluids, sediment, and industrial waste”</b> leaked during <span class="caps">ETP</span>'s construction of two pipelines in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. Also left out: air pollution and leaks from natural gas pipelines, which were beyond the scope of the new report but which play a significant role in climate change and can cause explosions.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Across the entire industry, hazardous liquid pipelines spilled a total of 34.7 million gallons during the past decade, directly causing 16 deaths and $2.7 billion worth of damage. More than one in ten of those gallons came from <span class="caps">ETP</span>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That’s a red flag for a company that has an extensive network across the country and is building even more pipelines as we speak in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and other states,” said Greenpeace <span class="caps">USA</span> research lead Tim Donaghy, PhD. “<span class="caps">ETP</span> and Sunoco's track record of spills, including several striking examples of big spills, are indicators of a constant threat to communities and water. This could happen again to communities along the pipeline routes.”</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Long List of Spills and Accidents</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span class="caps">ETP</span> spilled crude oil over 400 times,</b> “refined petroleum products” such as gasoline 92 times, and other flammable or toxic fluids 27 times, the researchers found. And many of the spills involved large amounts of oil — roughly one in four of <span class="caps">ETP</span>'s pipeline oil spills involved 2,100 or more gallons of oil.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one 2005 incident, 436,000 gallons of crude oil spewed from a tank farm into a Delaware River tributary outside Philadelphia. That same year, a pipeline built in the 1950s dumped enough oil into the Kentucky and Ohio river to leave a 17-mile oil slick. And in 2009, a Texas pipeline caught fire and leaked over 140,000 gallons near Colorado City, Texas.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cleaning up those sorts of spills is no easy job. Out of 3.6 million gallons <span class="caps">ETP</span> spilled, almost half — a total of more than 1.5 million gallons — was never mopped up, the report found. In addition, the company caused $115 million in property damage, according to federal tallies.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sunoco, which merged with <span class="caps">ETP</span>, is included in the report's analysis. In 2012, <span class="caps">ETP</span> first merged with Sunoco, formally absorbing pipeline-wing Sunoco Logistics Partners in 2017. The combined companies operate over 70,000 miles of <span class="caps">U.S.</span>pipes. That's “nearly long enough to encircle the earth three times,” the report notes.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new report finds that <span class="caps">ETP</span>'s pipelines have a somewhat higher-than-average rate of problems. Twelve percent of <span class="caps">ETP</span>'s spills polluted water sources, finds <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/oil-and-water/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the report</a>, titled “Oil and Water: <span class="caps">ETP</span> and Sunoco's History of Pipeline Spills.” That's compared against a 10 percent national average. And three out of eight incidents nationwide where <span class="caps">PHMSA</span> specifically noted harm to drinking water supplies involved <span class="caps">ETP</span> pipelines.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pipeline industry's record has grown worse over time, the report notes, reaching a peak of 454 spills in 2015 before dropping “slightly” to 404 in 2017.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bayou Bridge Pipeline</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company's controversial pipeline construction projects across the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> include the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/conflict-cajun-country-bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-standing-rock" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bayou Bridge pipeline</a> that would tie in to the Dakota Access pipeline and carry oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale down to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mariner East 2 pipeline that will carry the plastic precursor ethane across Ohio and Pennsylvania to the Atlantic coast, and the 713-mile Rover pipeline, that will transport natural gas through Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, where millions of gallons of drilling fluid have spilled during construction.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Bayou Bridge pipeline's route through wetlands and drinking water supplies for over 300,000 people has community and environmental advocates particularly concerned.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline represents a high risk to hundreds of waterways across the entire state of Louisiana,” said Waterkeeper Alliance Clean and Safe Energy Campaign Manager Donna Lisenby.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The new report warns that if <span class="caps">ETP</span>'s track record remains unchanged, the Bayou Bridge pipeline will experience multiple spills of 2,100 gallons or more of hazardous materials after it's built</b>. “Assuming the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> system-wide rate for significant crude oil spills of 0.001 per year per mile, we estimate that the Bayou Bridge Pipeline would suffer eight significant spills during a 50-year nominal lifetime,” the report concludes. Photographs of Bayou Bridge construction taken by photojournalist Julie Dermansky, who has <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/06/bayou-bridge-protesters-arrested-louisiana-advances-bill-toughening-penalties-pipeline-protests" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> on <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/25/federal-judge-halts-bayou-bridge-pipeline-installation-photos-show-damage-inflicted" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bayou Bridge</a> for DeSmog, are included in Greenpeace's report.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We're not happy with Bayou Bridge because we know that Energy Transfer Partners is accident prone,” said Harry Joseph, a pastor from St. James, Louisiana, where the Bayou Bridge pipeline will terminate. “We fear that something will happen in St. James — it's just a matter of time because of <span class="caps">ETP</span>’s history. The company has had problems.”</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sinkholes, Spills, and Suing</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those fears will sound familiar to some Pennsylvanians living near the Mariner East 1 and 2 pipelines, where the new report tallied over a hundred “inadvertent releases” and accidents, some of which contaminated locals' water wells, polluted local trout streams, or even caused massive sinkholes to open up. One of those sinkholes erupted just 300 feet from railroad tracks where Amtrak trains and local commuter rail operates, prompting the state to issue an emergency shutdown.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many living near Mariner East's path are concerned about the risk of more accidents. “This is an organic farm,” West Cornwall farmer Phil Stober <a href="http://www.abc27.com/news/2nd-pipeline-added-to-project-planned-for-midstate/1037047235" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told <span class="caps">ABC</span> News</a>, “and if it damages our groundwater, what recourse do we have?”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company's most notoriously controversial project was, of course, the Dakota Access pipeline (<span class="caps">DAPL</span>), where an encampment by people calling themselves “water protectors” in Standing Rock, North Dakota, drew national attention as law enforcement used attack dogs, tear gas, and high-pressure water cannons in subzero temperatures against Indigenous peoples and allies who opposed <span class="caps">DAPL</span> construction.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We all recall the Dakota Access pipeline construction process because of the inspiring resistance from Indigenous communities that wanted to protect their water,” said Greenpeace's Donaghy. “Those Water Protectors were right; that pipeline alone leaked four times in 2017.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An additional three incidents along the full stretch of the Dakota Access-Energy Transfers Crude Oil pipeline were also reported to federal authorities, including a roughly 5,000 gallon oil spill in Tennessee.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other <span class="caps">ETP</span> pipeline construction projects that have had a lower national profile also caused major spills. The Permian <span class="caps">II</span>Express pipeline dumped 361,200 gallons of crude near Sweetwater, Texas, in the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/north-dakota-pipeline/update-1-north-dakota-spill-sixth-largest-pipeline-leak-in-2016-data-idUSL1N1EF0V9" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">largest</a> pipeline leak of 2016.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Last August, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/08/22/dakota-access-trump-greenpeace-racketeering" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="caps">ETP</span> sued Greenpeace, BankTrack, and Earth First!</a>, </b>claiming that anti-pipeline advocates were engaged in racketeering against the firm and demanding $900 million in damages.</span> Greenpeace is currently defending against those charges in court and <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-etps-lawsuit-against-greenpeace/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">argues</a> that the case is what's known as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or<b> <span class="caps">SLAPP</span> </b>suit, aimed at silencing discussion of harms caused by <span class="caps">ETP</span>. (This month, a federal judge effectively dropped Earth First! from that lawsuit, <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/energy-transfer-equity-et-al-v-greenpeace-earth-first-et-al" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">following arguments</a> that Earth First! is a philosophy and not actually an organization. <span class="caps">ETP</span> had attempted to hold a magazine called Earth First! Journal liable as representing Earth First!) The lawsuit against Greenpeace is still ongoing.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/06/bayou-bridge-protesters-arrested-louisiana-advances-bill-toughening-penalties-pipeline-protests">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/06/bayou-bridge-protesters-arrested-louisiana-advances-bill-toughening-penalties-pipeline-protests</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no linx many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bayou Bridge Protesters Arrested as Louisiana Advances Bill Toughening Penalties for Pipeline Protests</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Julie Dermansky • Friday, April 6, 2018 - 16:29</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protester chained to a barrel in the road</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Thursday, April 5, opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline attempted to shut down its construction by blocking an industrial supply company’s facility in Iowa, Louisiana, just outside of Lake Charles on the same day a bill spelling out harsher penalties for pipeline protesters was advanced to committee during the Louisiana legislative session. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For about two hours starting at 6:30 a.m., roughly 20 protesters blocked the entrance to Yak Mat, an industrial yard that supplies access mats used to create temporary roadways at pipeline construction sites and enable trucks to pass through muddy areas. The site is close to the starting point of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, which spans south Louisiana from Lake Charles, near the Texas border, to St. James, along the Mississippi River. The pipeline is the tail end of Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access pipeline network, which begins in North Dakota. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Renate Heurich, locked to a barrel, being rolled out of the entrance to the Yat Mat lot in Iowa, Louisiana, during a protest against the Bayou Bridge pipeline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Louisiana joins several states, including Wyoming, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, in introducing a bill specifically making the types of protests increasingly common at oil and gas pipeline construction sites criminal acts with harsher penalties. </b>This latest proposed legislation parallels an anti-protest law that passed in Oklahoma in May 2017. Protests against the Dakota Access pipeline were cited as the inspiration for these “critical infrastructure” bills, which liken the actions of pipeline protesters to “terrorist activities.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly after police arrived on Thursday, the protesters dispersed, except two New Orleans residents, both educators. Renate Heurich and Susan Prevost chained themselves into barrels fastened to the ground at the entrance to the mat supply yard. Both women started the day in crawfish costumes to emphasis the oil pipeline’s threat to the wild crawfish habitat in the Atchafalaya Basin, a National Heritage Area which the pipeline is being built through, despite an ongoing legal challenge. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Law enforcement at the anti-pipeline protest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Law enforcement officers waiting to move in on the protesters in Iowa, Louisiana. There were more members of law enforcement at the protest than protesters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protester dressed as a crawfish</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the Bayou Bridge pipeline protesters, dressed as an iconic Louisiana crawfish, in Iowa, Louisiana.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prevost stressed the importance of protecting Louisiana’s heritage. She worries that an oil spill in the basin will mean that future generations of local Louisianans won’t know the joys of traditional crawfish boils. A spill in the basin could decimate the wild crawfish population. “Can Louisiana really afford the Bayou Bridge pipeline from the company that has the worst record on pipeline accidents?” Prevost asked me the night before the protest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Heurich, a founding member of 350 New Orleans,</b> believes it is imperative to take a stand against climate change. She believes direct actions against the pipeline are necessary because tremendous public outcry against the permitting of new fossil fuel projects and ongoing legal challenges against the pipeline have not succeeded in stopping its construction. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Six Democratic New Orleans city council members recently voted in favor of a new gas plant and Democratic governor John Bel Edwards still won’t acknowledge man’s role in climate change,” she said, “but they all know humans are responsible for climate change. I don’t believe they’re dumb. It is absolutely about the money.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-pipeline protester Renate Heurich</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Renate Heurich, a retired teacher and member of 350 New Orleans, protesting against the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Iowa, Louisiana.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A large group of law enforcement officers and protesters at the site of the demonstration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protesters move back when police move in and tell them to disperse. All but the two who remained in the barrels complied. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heurich also wants to protect Louisianans from the pollution oil and gas industry sites produce which sicken many people in fenceline communities, like St. James, a small town where the Bayou Bridge pipeline will end. She told me that people she knows are already dying of illnesses associated with toxic emissions from industrial sites in the area, including Keith Hunter, a retired carpenter, whom she met at an anti-pipeline meeting in St. James. Others she met a year ago in St. James have been diagnosed with cancer. </font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">After<b> sheriff’</b>s deputies managed to move Heurich’s barrel out of the way, operations were able to resume. The deputies offered Heurich and Prevost a deal: If they unlocked themselves on their own, they would be charged with<b> felony trespass, but avoid being taken to jail. </b>Heurich unlocked herself, while Prevost remained in her barrel until noon, deciding to unlock herself after two trucks passed dangerously close to her.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Truck loaded with mats passes next to protester chained to a barrel in the road</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Truck loaded with mats returning to the yard passing dangerously close to Susan Prevost who was locked into a barrel fastened into the ground.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Susan Prevost removes herself from the barrel she chained herself to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After conferring with a lawyer, Susan Prevost removes herself from a barrel she attached herself to in order to block work on the Bayou Bridge pipeline. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Susan Prevost is led away by two police officers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Susan Prevost being led away by police after her arrest during a protest against the Bayou Bridge pipeline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cherri Foytlin, one of the founders of the anti-pipeline<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> L’eau Est La Vie Camp (Water Is Life), was also arrested after live-streaming the demonstration for over an hour at the end of the driveway, which she thought was a public road. </span>“I complied with what the officers told me,” she wrote in an email. When the police came after her, others from the camp pleaded with the officers to let her go, explaining she hadn’t heard them tell her to get off the driveway. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another activist who took part in the protest was accused of stealing a car. All were released later the same afternoon but face charges.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cherri Foytlin in the back of a police car</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cherri Foytlin, in the back of a police car being taken to jail for trespassing during a protest against the Bayou Bridge pipeline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protester escorted by two officers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protester being taken away.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heurich found it ironic that their direct action took place hours before the state legislature advanced to committee the bill HB 727, which would strengthen punishments against pipeline protesters. She said the attorney for the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, who reportedly helped draft the bill, sat next to its lead sponsor during the session. “The oil and gas industry writes a law to protect its interest, in order to keep Louisiana a sacrifice zone while at the same time taking away our First Amendment right to protest its actions,” she said in dismay, “and our legislators support it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Louisiana law already prohibits trespassing at sites known as “critical infrastructure,</b>” including power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants, water treatment facilities, and natural gas terminals. House Bill 727 adds pipelines and their construction areas to the list of critical infrastructure sites, a move in reaction to growing pipeline protests nationwide. </font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">HB 727 is based on a model bill produced by the conservative, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)</span>.</b> “But it is ALEC-plus” Pam Spees, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing a coalition of groups against the Bayou Bridge pipeline in a variety of legal challenges, said. “People not involved in an action, who don’t protest, damage, or injure anything or anybody, can still be held accountable for being associated with activists.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bill increases the penalties for any damage to or interference with pipeline and other critical infrastructure sites. Sentences range from one to 15 years in prison with a $10,000 fine or six to 20 years plus a $25,000 fine if the damage could threaten human life or disrupt site operations. In addition, this state bill <b>criminalizes “conspiracy to commit trespass.”</b> Anyone involved with organizing a protest like the one on April 5 could face a year in prison. And anyone connected to an action that involves damaging the infrastructure could<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> end up with a prison sentence of 20 years and fines of up to $250,000 if a judge rules that they are part of a conspiracy that threatens life or the operation of critical infrastructure. </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The language concerning conspiracy is worrisome,</b>” Spees told me during the protest in Iowa. “The conspiracy provision makes it possible for law enforcement to arrest people before they have actually done anything wrong, even if they are just planning a nonviolent protest.” After Thursday’s protest, Spees traveled to the jail to help make sure everyone arrested during the demonstration was released.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Along with a handful of others, Meg Louge, a member of 350 New Orleans, spoke out against HB 727 at the state capitol in Baton Rouge. Many of them objected to the proposed law because existing trespass laws are already in place. Some argued during Thursday’s legislative session that the new law is meant to quash dissent against oil and gas pipelines. “The representatives who spoke in favor of the bill cited the protests in North Dakota a couple of times and how they don’t want Louisiana to ever have a ‘Standing Rock’ type situation,” Louge said. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Louge was not pleased the bill was moved to committee, she said that she was glad that Rep. Valarie Hodges, one of the bill’s sponsors, agreed to amend the conspiracy language during the session, before the bill is voted on in committee.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Thursday’s pipeline protest didn’t go as planned, Heurich was not discouraged. “Today’s action was a success,” she said during a call. “One of our goals is to get the word out that climate change is a huge issue and that there is real opposition in Louisiana.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><div><span helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></div><div><span helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/30/tigerswan-lisa-smith-security-license-louisiana-bayou-bridge-pipeline">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/30/tigerswan-lisa-smith-security-license-louisiana-bayou-bridge-pipeline</a></font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="print-link" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" open="open" sans="sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="min-height: 280px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" face="Times New Roman">The private security firm <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/10/28/private-security-firm-dakota-access-iraq-afghanistan-blackwater" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">TigerSwan, known for its controversial military-style tactics against Dakota Access pipeline protesters</a>, is appealing the decision to deny its application for a license to operate in the state of Louisiana, where Energy Transfer Partners is building the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/conflict-cajun-country-bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-standing-rock" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bayou Bridge pipeline</a>. In November, several environmental groups opposed to the Bayou Bridge pipeline <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/11/13/bayou-bridge-pipeline-opponents-file-intervene-hearing-private-security-firm-louisiana" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">attempted to intervene in this case</a>, saying their members were particularly vulnerable to TigerSwan’s security and surveillance practices should it be allowed to operate in support of that oil pipeline, but today the Louisiana State Board of Private Security Examiners <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/no-bayou-bridge-pipeline-petition-intervene" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">denied this request</a>.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">However, during this process, it came to light that the state board denied another security license application from a TigerSwan employee who failed to disclose her employment with the firm after TigerSwan’s application was rejected.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The board's deposition of this employee, obtained via a public records request, was included in the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/intervene-request_lisa-smith-deposition_tigerswan.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">request to intervene in TigerSwan’s case</a> by 350 New Orleans, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Gulf Restoration Network, L’eau Est la Vie (“Water Is Life”) Camp, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Given its track record, TigerSwan should not be allowed to come into Louisiana and use their military-style tactics to hinder the right of ordinary Louisianans to exercise their First Amendment rights,” Pamela Spees, attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is representing the groups, said in a statement. “The board did the right thing in denying them a license.”</p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">TigerSwan Employee Tries to Set up New Security Firm in Louisiana</h3>[pix convoy]
<p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Part of the reason the board cited for rejecting TigerSwan’s case on July 17, 2017 was “they were denied licensure twice in [North] Dakota and are pending litigation,” <a href="http://www.katc.com/story/35902508/private-security-firm-that-surveilled-dapl-protests-seeks-louisiana-license" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to the board’s executive director Fabian Blache <span class="caps">III</span></a>.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/06/28/tigerswan-faces-lawsuit-over-unlicensed-security-operations-in-north-dakota/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">TigerSwan is being sued</a> by the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board for allegedly performing security work in the state without a license during and after the Standing Rock protests against the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Dakota Access pipeline</a>.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">On September 19, 2017, the Louisiana board deposed TigerSwan employee Lisa Smith, who had applied for a license to operate her brand-new private security firm, <span class="caps">LTSA</span>, <span class="caps">LLC</span>, in Lafayette, Louisiana. While she originally said she opened the company office in August, later in the deposition Smith corrected this to say it was actually July — the same month that TigerSwan’s application was rejected. <a href="http://coraweb.sos.la.gov/commercialsearch/CommercialSearchDetails.aspx?CharterID=1260911_E0CF76B202" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Louisiana state records indicate</a> that <span class="caps">LTSA</span>, <span class="caps">LLC</span> was registered on August 3, 2017.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">In her license application, filed August 4, Smith, a resident of North Carolina, where TigerSwan is also based, submitted a resume which did not disclose her contemporaneous employment with TigerSwan.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">Instead, she listed her employer as “Metlife <span class="caps">MSOC</span>,” which is the security operations center where the firm had contracted her to work. In the September deposition, she confirmed that TigerSwan paid her salary but that she reported for work at Metlife.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">[doc]
In Lisa Smith's deposition on September 19, 2017, she denies her company <span class="caps">LTSA</span> was set up in relation to TigerSwan's denied license to operate in Louisiana.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the deposition, the board asked Smith whether or not she had ever listed TigerSwan as her employer on her LinkedIn profile. She answered that she did not remember.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">However, the board supplied an email with a screenshot of a Google search result showing a cache of her LinkedIn profile, which listed her as a “Watch Officer at TigerSwan/Metlife <span class="caps">SOC</span>.” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-smith-73756544/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Her current LinkedIn profile</a> does not list her employment with TigerSwan, and while during the deposition Smith said her Metlife contract was already expired in September, her profile continues to list “Metlife-<span class="caps">MSOC</span>” as her present employer.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">When asked by the board about why she decided to open a security firm in Louisiana, Smith replied: “The opportunities were good.” However, she denied <span class="caps">LTSA</span> had any connection with TigerSwan and its failure to secure a license in the state, and further said that while she had heard of “Bayou Bridge,” she said she did not know what it was or whether she would consider applying for work related to it in the future.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">Smith also denied knowing someone named Brandon Nix. According to Blache, the state board's executive director, Nix was the agent who originally applied for TigerSwan’s license in Louisiana.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">“We later learned that he was the person liaising with Lisa Smith’s registers office site to secure the keys to the property leased by her company <span class="caps">LTSA</span>,” Blache told DeSmog via email.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">[doc]
In Lisa Smith's deposition, she denied her new security company, <span class="caps">LTSA</span>, had any connection to her employer TigerSwan. </p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">The <a href="http://lsbpse.com/disciplinary-actions/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">board turned down Smith’s request</a> for a license on October 4, 2017. “Denial was based on material misrepresentations in the application and during the State Board deposition,” said Blache.</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">TigerSwan had two lawyers representing the firm present during Smith’s deposition. It is not currently employed by Energy Transfer Partners to do security work related to the Bayou Bridge pipeline, a 162-mile-long project which will carry to Gulf Coast refineries oil originally drilled in North Dakota. So far, that security work has been performed by the firm Hub Enterprises.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">Neither Lisa Smith not TigerSwan responded to multiple requests for comment.</p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">TigerSwan Connections in Louisiana</h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Even before the Louisiana board rejected TigerSwan’s application, the private security firm already appeared to be working its connections to the Bayou Bridge pipeline.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February 2017, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/15/what-outsider-hidden-conflicts-interest-can-learn-local-about-bayou-bridge-pipeline" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">retired Major General James “Spider” Marks testified in support</a> of this pipeline at a Louisiana Department of Natural Resources permit hearing and <a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/opinion/2017/02/08/bayou-bridge-pipeline-bringing-safety-and-security-louisiana/97571802/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">published an op-ed endorsing it in a local newspaper</a>. In neither of these instances, however, did Marks disclose that he was chair of TigerSwan’s advisory board, not unlike the way Smith also failed to share her ties to the firm. (Marks is no longer listed on TigerSwan’s website.)</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">[video]</p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/07/05/dakota-access-tigerswan-james-spider-marks-los-angeles-riots" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">seems to be a trend for Marks</a>, who has a history of appearing on <span class="caps">TV</span> as a military pundit without disclosing his ties to military weapons companies.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">TigerSwan appears determined to succeed in gaining access to perform security work in Louisiana.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/11/13/bayou-bridge-pipeline-opponents-file-intervene-hearing-private-security-firm-louisiana" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Julie Dermansky has previously reported</a> for DeSmog: “A few days after TigerSwan’s permit was denied in Louisiana, the company filed an appeal and hired five lobbyists who work for the lobbying firm <a href="http://sostrategy.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Southern Strategy Group</a>.”</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">The firm is currently awaiting a hearing with the Louisiana State Board of Private Security Examiners appealing its denied application.</p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Louisiana Proposes Harsher Punishments for Pipeline Offenses </h3><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With implications for future protests against the Bayou Bridge pipeline, this week the Louisiana State Legislature introduced <a href="https://legiscan.com/LA/bill/HB727/2018" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">House Bill 727</a>, which proposes as a criminal offense the “unauthorized entry of and criminal damage to a critical infrastructure.”</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The bill seeks to include oil and gas pipelines and their construction sites among the definition of “critical infrastructure.” For those convicted of damaging this infrastructure when a threat to human life is “foreseeable” or the action “disrupts” the infrastructure's operations, the bill stipulates a sentence of imprisonment and hard labor for between six and 20 years, up to $25,000 in fines, or both.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It also includes separate “conspiracy” charges, with similar criminal penalties, except that the maximum possible fine is $250,000. The bill both amends the <a href="http://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=78576" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Louisiana criminal code</a>, which currently deals only with “unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure” and creates the new crimes for damaging those facilities and conspiring to either illegally enter or damage them.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Several other states, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/21/wyoming-alec-model-bill-pipeline-protests" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">including Wyoming, Iowa, and Ohio</a>, have introduced similar laws in recent months which would criminalize the type of activities of past oil and gas pipeline protesters. Oklahoma already passed into law parallel legislation which has served as a template for other state proposals.</span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;">Some state lawmakers have specifically cited the Dakota Access pipeline protests as inspiration for these “critical infrastructure” bills and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/31/iowa-bill-alec-criminalize-pipeline-protest" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">likened actions by pipeline protesters to “<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">terrorist activities.”</b></a></p></div></div></div></div></span></span></div><div><span helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/07/bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-governor-edwards-surveillance">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/07/bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-governor-edwards-surveillance</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14860" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline accused <b>Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards</b> of meeting with representative of the oil and gas industry while refusing to meet with activists and communities affected by the pipeline’s construction. They further allege that the administration has instead placed them under surveillance, pointing to similar treatment of Dakota Access pipeline opponents in North Dakota in 2016. Their claims are based in part on emails and other public records released by the state.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The activists brought their grievances to the Democratic governor’s home and office on March 1, holding a press conference in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge and then occupying the foyer to his office in the State Capitol for over an hour. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://desmogblog.cmail19.com/t/t-l-uykhlkk-yuirlyty-g/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; background: transparent; outline: none; font-weight: bold;">Read more.</a></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no link many</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bayou Bridge Pipeline Opponents Say Louisiana Governor's Office Is Surveilling Them</b></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Julie Dermansky • Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - 16:43</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana Bucket Brigade founder Anne Rolfes at a press conference protesting Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards' treatment of anti-pipeline activists.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline accused Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards of meeting with representative of the oil and gas industry while refusing to meet with activists and communities affected by the pipeline’s construction. They further allege that the administration has instead placed them under surveillance, pointing to similar treatment of Dakota Access pipeline opponents in North Dakota in 2016. Their claims are based in part on emails and other public records released by the state.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The activists brought their grievances to the Democratic governor’s home and office on March 1, holding a press conference in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge and then occupying the foyer to his office in the State Capitol for over an hour.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Bayou Bridge pipeline should be called the John Bel pipeline,” Louisiana Bucket Brigade founder and director Anne Rolfes declared at the press conference. In her view, “any accidents that will happen” related to the pipeline lead back to the Governor. He had the power to stop it, she said, but chose not to. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the press conference, representatives from the HELP Association, 350 New Orleans, L'eau est La Vie (Water Is Life) camp, and the Center for Constitutional Rights also expressed disappointment in what they described as the state government’s cozy relationship with industry.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Louisiana Bucket Brigade</b> read aloud emails about the Bayou Bridge pipeline from the Edwards administration and industry that were obtained by the <b>Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based legal and educational nonprofit.</b></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pastor Harry Joseph of Mt. Triumph Baptist Church in St. James, Louisiana</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pastor Harry Joseph of the Mount Triumph Baptist Church in St. James, where the pipeline will terminate, speaking at the press conference in Baton Rouge.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Security staff at the Louisiana Bucket Brigade press conference March 1</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Security next to the press conference in Baton Rouge.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The governor, who voiced his support for the pipeline early on, has not commented on a federal judge’s recent ruling halting construction of the project through the Atchafalaya Basin, an environmentally sensitive National Heritage Area.</b></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pipeline is a joint venture between majority stakeholder Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, and Phillips 66 Partners, LP. Pipeline construction along its route from Lake Charles, near the Texas border, to St. James, about 60 miles west of New Orleans, began in January. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CCR attorney Pamela Spees grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, one of the communities affected by the pipeline. She said in a press release that the emails show how “the deck is stacked against people in Louisiana who stand in opposition to the ongoing destruction and harm caused by the Oil and Gas industry. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The indications of monitoring and surveillance of local advocates and small organizations by the <b>Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness</b> are particularly concerning. It is astounding that the resources of so many law enforcement agencies are trained on watching these organizations and communities trying to exercise their rights to be heard.”</span></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, Spees found it “deeply troubling that not one email released by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality contained any discussion of or expressions of concern by people in the agency about the alarming accident history of the companies involved in the Bayou Bridge project.”</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CCR is still fighting to get other public records related to the Bayou Bridge pipeline, and has appealed two cases it lost. One is against Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC, in which the nonprofit sought records concerning the company’s use of eminent domain. And the other is against Louisiana’s St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office and<b> Sheriff Greg Champagne for failing to release public records related to trips he and some of his deputies took to North Dakota to observe how law enforcement was responding to the Dakota Access pipeline protests.</b></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We saw a dangerous blurring of the lines between law enforcement and private corporations at Standing Rock,” Spees said. “Louisiana residents have a right to know what role local officials played in that situation and how it relates to events playing out closer to home.”</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Surveillance of Opponents of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dominic Renfrey, a representative with the Center for Constitutional Rights, informed me that Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC is employing the firm Hub Enterprises to provide security for the company, based on sightings at pipeline construction sites.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Transfer Partners spokesperson Alexis Daniel told me, “The safety of our employees and the communities in which we live and work is our top priority. In order to ensure that, we do have security plans in place and we do communicate with law enforcement agencies as appropriate. <b>Beyond that, we do not discuss details of our security efforts.”</b></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">CCR’s Renfrey also said that documents released last week indicate the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) “might be involved in surveillance.” The GOHSEP director sent an email about the<b> Louisiana Bucket Brigade </b>to state regulatory and law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the Department of Natural Resources, the Louisiana State Police, and the Louisiana National Guard. The agency also prepared a report about the<b> L'Eau Est La Vie Camp,</b> contrasting it to the resistance camps against the Dakota Access pipeline.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hub Enterprises security</b> personnel near a Bayou Bridge pipeline construction site</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hub Enterprises security personnel across the street from a Bayou Bridge pipeline construction site that activists shut down temporarily on February 26 during a direct action leading to the arrest of three protesters. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOHSEP Communications Director Mike Steele told The Advocate that there’s nothing sinister about his agency’s role. “The agency keeps an eye on issues that may, at some point, draw big crowds requiring security, traffic control, or crowd control. Homeland security may have an ominous connotation,” he said, “but they aren’t spies.” </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s not surveillance. It’s letting these agencies know that these matters are ongoing,” Steele said.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">There was plenty of security on hand at the March 1 press conference and impromptu visit to the governor’s office. Some of the security personnel were impossible to identify because they remained in vehicles with tinted windows.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anne Rolfes tries to catch who is inside an apparent security vehicle</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anne Rolfes, founder of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, trying to figure out who was in an SUV monitoring the press conference across from the Governor’s Mansion.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Security inside the foyer of the Louisiana governor's office during an anti-pipeline protest</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Security inside the foyer in front of the governor’s office.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents so far obtained by CCR don’t indicate that any state agency hired a private security firm to surveil opponents of the pipeline. However, if one did, it wouldn’t be the first time a government agency in Louisiana hired a private firm to supplement its resources.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Last year, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration hired Trident Response Group,</b> a private security firm based in Texas, for risk assessment, surveillance, intelligence gathering, and extra security at sites where Confederate monuments were slated for removal.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Landrieu’s administration defended the move to hire a private security firm after documents from an open records request showed the city paid over $700,000 dollars to Trident in May while the city prepared to remove the monuments. While denying that the city spied on local groups on either side of the issue, the city has not been transparent about what services Trident provided. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Take ’Em Down Nola, the group pushing for the removal of the Confederate monuments, suggested that Trident may have hacked some of its members’ emails and social media accounts and possibly infiltrated the group.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trident shares similarities with TigerSwan, one of the private security firms employed by Energy Transfer Partners in North Dakota, and Hub Enterprises. All three companies’ websites tout staff that include former military personnel. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TigerSwan’s license application with the Louisiana State Board of Private Security was turned down last year. The denial was based on the pending litigation against the company for allegedly operating in North Dakota without a permit. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some Bayou Bridge opponents believe the company was working in Louisiana without a license before its application was turned down.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February 2017, James “Spider” Marks spoke in favor of the Bayou Bridge pipeline at a permit hearing. He identified himself as a retired U.S. Army major general and president of a corporate advisory firm, but did not disclose that he also sits on TigerSwan’s board of advisors. </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Louisiana Bucket Brigade says that emails from GOHSEP reveal Louisiana officials are aligned with a growing national trend of surveillance intended to intimidate citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, a finding the group considers alarming.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Since the Standing Rock camp opposing the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota was disbanded last year, 56 bills that heighten the risk and criminal penalties of dissent have been introduced across 30 states,</b>” reads a press release from the organization. “Many of these bills seek to frame protests as ‘riots’ and activists as ‘terrorists‘ or ‘jihadists,’ in attempts to criminalize protected free speech activity.” </font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Several states have even gone as far as introducing or passing bills that critics say would specifically criminalize pipeline protests.</b></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The documents reveal an unacceptable disparity in the public agencies’ treatment of pipeline and industry representatives in contrast to the communities they're obligated to serve,” Spees said. She told me that CCR will continue to seek more information from Louisiana’s public agencies because the documents already obtained suggest there is more to the story.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Energy Transfer Partners spokesperson Alexis Daniel told me, “The safety of our employees and the communities in which we live and work is our top priority. In order to ensure that, we do have security plans in place and we do communicate with law enforcement agencies as appropriate. Beyond that, we do not discuss details of our security efforts.”</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1520701617325_14862" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I asked Governor Edwards’ office what he would say to those who feel he is willing to meet and listen to representatives of the oil and gas industry but not the Bayou Bridge pipeline’s opponents, including those directly impacted by the project. Shauna Sanford, a representative from the governor’s office, said, “We don't have a comment at this time.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519500890346_15761" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our “Power Behind the Pipelines” work got off to a fast start in 2018 with two new reports.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519500890346_15760" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Our January <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h16/88fkwi8SpjSLirz77j2S7MM5cfDWKMhGoYskgmJBoKADgm5OJ1OFjintiecJtkx-2BpCbmAlBghfato2elZW1GHtuKDNvBe6vwrxUtv3Gddn1SiPu7RuXPFCoN3hNwAQf-2BjFxEHJrVY2AJGHO-2F-2FkrXHfUyMTTBQO-2BNVJjQ1I0eKElZ6g30T1UePLcMGL2pkCgK0ckMTkRM8OUKLGe63zT4yPQQL-2FKYe2owRQNFV57DCEbhvL7jbp9puedrw0LIvT-2B-2FXQXrTMFWewWLM-2BQ7kUfB-2Bm65oBM4AsW5QDsPNRp5XZ74opuZKBMl5eWMPT4pJOEPQv33GKZ-2BxslpaE0kv40JdVkfSF82FyEBY6jML04McY75P7fjEHcno3sxNrjCVAiGLSec-2B0RxFpgN0nfMapqhAkPNvJmPYypBolrdgVRECTWWPVIMIkZRiRSFcz9QJscgHKUOcelDCih5Obi2Rsg-2BCQ-3D-3D" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">report</a> on the Bayou Bridge pipeline revealed that former Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu had been lobbying for the pipeline at the same time as she was registered to advocate on behalf of a state regulatory body that had yet to sign off on the project. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We also highlighted some of controversial issues surrounding the big bank financing of the pipeline. The report was widely covered in the </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h17/xO8Qz3FatimMVjzIXEygbA3A7GzncwlR7vSnxu2-2FeifZYzvEaiSD8-2BG3NSfJeQojrQHEfQlVRctELpv4jga2rB4JUMwp-2FnX38aXk4sD4402Bo5qg-2F-2BHnTbINYBomGJLIT-2FCMtQN-2BgRvOn-2BrfOugGnQlb4NVAJoezlEJRnoR8inIg4CnZwBNQ8T94Wz9DnfIVOycR5ANDon-2FH7nX9EcRnq3ReoJJWBQ4yd5Z7VB9cTmJkNJrP5VK0E-2FSqkpzNB7Cb7tW0oq3WSEaVgZhrRgDAoPcuYEjy8CqqDqo8i3EPA7yZz0djwMh9ac4UUCq4txCwQdFZXU4g0wmD5maDUj3Um-2FJ5qIpgmG46b6kogeWqi40iCozBTWmacdaOggEGclwybhZhT7IKL91jzTSEZSXKX2H1qZTNK-2BG0WS5jK2zI34dS6Z1lalvITq-2BVGu6-2BVElDc1Y-2FxxgCbXTqLOyNX3Jbeg-3D-3D" style="background: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><em>Advocate</em></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h18/iadoQp7swV9DkSEL9EBiYFBxJ5IiFstx7VoMfRGI5RxbPmLzcMDo-2F-2BC0OQfUqmMd4ws1eUFpbYYxpMAnUkRMvkDgeR8n9dBEIr-2Bs8pKeyh7zniglk0YsgR-2Fkvtf5tchsgncBjldD-2FH5VxdP3QhOH-2FD7-2BpgByN-2F-2BZkgPNwIiW4PHOjc4mPFnZjzcnsXKIGNiCFGAAGMOki38yfvFuYFEahGg6few3-2B95I2lJBf3lehIsJP-2BRlYsdqreG-2B2m7xc1VLvKemH5jeABaUBG2rt5YH-2FYCXif2pYzgAKHv2bdc69ctQNxDOI8zO-2F9Z0QlDVmi5UOPh0-2FSWnb-2BQBNP4aedl7bGBoB6oY7cAC4OBiPSav-2FngEOnd-2FaNyw1KRcIjL5Z74S2EVotL2nfoywZi3nBLQGsqT0OD0okIMrfLD4gQSqoPDJbJhiZ-2Bf1VbeHvoc3wHDcP3yFFBMbOlh4fgDUrwxU2c1P1HorrFn6pUD2H8vJiek-3D" style="background: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><em>International Business Times</em></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and other media.</span></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519500890346_15603" style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We published two February reports (<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h20/88fkwi8SpjSLirz77j2S7MM5cfDWKMhGoYskgmJBoKDUOWTnvO32ZU9Szn1Jp3dYVPNX95d93ddz6qhJ9GWMGvWbKgmkbBSoIEg-2BKVYAA805ta-2BFIbmOfJaaKAFOOrMPcOLPuEul59OTQh9OuwrLh2-2FjzCR-2Fh5IAVIafUwkWyB-2BoaEqQ6ekQC4YZM4PjC-2BUF6TfjIVkGbCN1ExfoIqF-2FcXvcSrvRFAY-2B07jjTU9TH6E-2BFxspLe7wL2HMMsZ-2Bene7SN9NAcedezdQwy6sFn5MeCnRlZEiTNrZ4jYtPrAH2ffVxta8f29MKdJJebh8g7lpAB54-2F6K74nVPqg-2BDLYIphrFVXFws8w4XhIwuXzH7dO6swu2tWd7ySFruYePDgsmTz1FIBeN8lvV1L1n9bOdvEYikAS9JUOj0Rge6NVLwfTANn-2F9KwD0VSqBDzLq-2FfJ2I" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">here</a> and <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h21/88fkwi8SpjSLirz77j2S7MM5cfDWKMhGoYskgmJBoKACzYGAHwO1iHsecWNY5IgrCug4s-2BKIAErd93Hzca-2BVgYZJ-2F3fH7evMzcdfzKixRjRo-2BATzVNgsjvzgX0XYWG7PwyZfMs21VkNTq8Io1Bf1TxnZvS3ekq7XE0msRIT4OUwbAUusZ6V9vOhthHwdBLTeLyQSMhjf26ZzBKmr9RhWrz9fdEQgIfpCY7yl5CRsMutAzEdDrZQ4dP-2FOoq7LS9HQYVQpsqOi-2FWxmOLo2Py4MNpapT2nItSdRyc8n4lqk4WIGqYUW64sdEgyV79TzNzxxQf-2BEKuitd2AtKks12nWVbG61YRLAIwgnINT0orTNNy5dSPVx6J3UEst8yHd49aFyB7fbONbfWVZelTwrqman76eNuR1-2FGJYBqwCC5FGOSEl3nLP-2FajPpgQnPIyH-2FadrhzdzoHffqMa23uZWgrn5fAMKEK8tIQJkhHFD8BmVpDwR7PpaSGcN2xh-2Fij-2FzjATLhE6YEhNQ9yYH7JNZVJoZhadAcMKPwryWpcEIXrjTOoao-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">here</a>) that showed how oil and gas interests - specifically those around the proposed 120-mile fracked gas PennEast pipeline - are positioning themselves to try to sway New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s transition. While Murphy has indicated that he wants to take on the fossil fuel industry, we revealed that seven pipeline lobbyists, along with attorneys and top executives tied to PennEast, have appointments in his transition, among other industry ties. The reports were covered in <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h22/bqdygTI1vIsnazaB26bAUK9v-2BQMZ7QrTP0ZzdMoI0VBsDZA6GVsdQ3oH7YuvG-2BTI8KXVSngp-2B24hBNyMLZMtsKFrz-2Bnd-2BBSyRSEcxZPd9S0AKoQ04Mh9Aid9ebHTWMIKGOXxQywdQGqwudNkEMeTWghqV5YjvICl-2F5StaAm0z710yGbC36EpmfJd-2F6Tg4279aJ-2Bn0-2FJeyXAeyi459m5BK-2FQPsTQsWgOHeafpJHqY8UXJLo3JEJBhZD4N96vyPkfojeFJ6dV83g0ftbhQ-2FzgQVcdhT9Vaq15iwZbWsFEHPlaALh0zRuCRg7-2BtGA5pE9zodNpWCOSezNlXGouWBLx3s2wVkYE-2FzKVD7Mi8B6PFLhGF2syVpjgi2ziRud920Ry7yu4LD68ZVSIsJyOS2l1aDdU9qeA35TgD-2BZlLxtQPEpw-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;"><em>ThinkProgress</em></a><em>, <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h23/1A43zuFX8f5Q4KEd9xb2-2B-2FZDspLqftGB-2FONAC7InVy3DJhwSeXDeY6blp3qmN9XmABor9FqhDZ4VA7F6G9pZNiyFmJnK5NQ4o9aYOEvt-2FuKWsLhLD7PNYA9aBGLC-2BFcLsah0Zt9ydUYOlmpWIQFI63un3UZ0v832I6KtbWmvDYOvSjJ4-2B5rESECg5LIVzr3lD0rRwdN4No5Q-2B9-2BmoZEpUwAD4arMqaRKo4if18I-2FMwbb6J-2FH-2BPKIS-2FVdtWt4rK6n9JL9K3SO-2Be4209TWWsj6sR-2FW55jCSt5fkCVfg0YxxZxRPtJevzVt5dcT-2BITcQSEOCcSIZrHizUtuq7r-2FCRAsEzemmdoMpSCs6BLTcdPJP1KT2Z-2B3v94QlH0ZABisstK3qrd-2Boh6E0HG7EFFgRbgEqfcy6-2BQYiF1LWBfwJG-2B-2BlQk7YyyQw5JLqqWiryoyFmGDbMXPXH6wynxKRKOvW66jQz1P0YkQjohkYsEP-2B0j6M7s-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">Alternet</a>, <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.actionnetwork.org/mpss/c/JAE/ni0YAA/t.2f8/I1AXGWBrTSWQTjG7hflBag/h24/YRJ5KzIvngffxjEd-2BDGBhARxndbNRrp5lTAWCBSIjr1otlNEW8X-2Fx0v9VwwIeXofyx1Bx8eEXvRwV2tcqxczKJyadO22tl5ehXHxVDwDmqptmiZRWXc-2Fl6ntYN8H8XqxziRnsM5-2Fc7I6SwxSx6Jdzgijk7fQ9RFMA171FKQpfM4-2BlucULahiGp5TfuprD8AsXLRIrSkq6YkGColqHiZMtKEsjSXwxYE0l8Cg2yALVgloVup2P6gw030jo1zQOldezQFvk-2Fiw9idwVseCPI2ahf07rsxuXs-2BUcaUG9znx3wQ3oR91SptwP6A7YmfPhs4iWVt2rn-2FSCozYkU8WkmrqNuxzpCE0agRM5oKeUnrrjaQq18SwoRncitBdsg71rqdp-2BImko-2FK1DSQeRfRaktpjkzkeecFkDMF3PpucqLbt2liyoSbxFdfkFoiGdmKH-2FtR6-2FuYKTiwQ47iHjUP-2FqeM5cQ-3D-3D" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background: transparent; outline: none;">TruthOut</a>,</em> and other media.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/11/13/bayou-bridge-pipeline-opponents-file-intervene-hearing-private-security-firm-louisiana">https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/11/13/bayou-bridge-pipeline-opponents-file-intervene-hearing-private-security-firm-louisiana</a>
</font><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A broad base of advocacy groups opposed to Energy Transfer Partners’ (<span class="caps" style="">ETP</span>) proposed <a href="mailto:https://www.desmogblog.com/conflict-cajun-country-bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-standing-rock" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bayou Bridge pipeline</a> continue to pressure officials in Louisiana to deny the remaining permissions the company needs to build the pipeline.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The groups are also trying to stop TigerSwan <span class="caps" style="">LLC</span>, one of the security firms that <span class="caps" style="">ETP</span> worked with in North Dakota, from obtaining a permit to operate in Louisiana.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caps" style="">ETP</span>, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, intends to build a 162-mile pipeline across southern Louisiana. If built, the Bayou Bridge will be the last leg, carrying oil fracked in North Dakota to Louisiana. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the pipeline can be built, <span class="caps" style="">ETP</span> needs a water quality certificate from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and a permit from the <span class="caps" style="">U.S.</span> Army Corps of Engineers.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The company already obtained another <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/04/03/breaking-louisiana-s-bayou-bridge-pipeline-one-permit-closer-reality-groups-opposing-pipeline-plan-resistance" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">required permit to operate from Louisiana Department of Natural Resources</a> under the state’s Coastal Zone program, but that permit is being <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/26/pastor-leads-lawsuit-opposing-bayou-bridge-pipeline-protect-louisiana-cancer-alley-community" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">challenged by a lawsuit spearheaded by the <b>St. James </b>community</a>, where the pipeline will end, roughly 50 miles west of New Orleans.</span>
</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TigerSwan in Louisiana?</font></strong></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.tigerswan.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">TigerSwan</a> is trying to obtain a permit from the <a href="http://lsbpse.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Louisiana State Board of Private Security Examiners</a> to operate in the state. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.katc.com/story/35902508/private-security-firm-that-surveilled-dapl-protests-seeks-louisiana-license" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Board rejected TigerSwan’s permit application in June</a>. In part, the denial was based on the <a href="https://theintercept.com/document/2017/06/28/tigerswan-complaint/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ongoing litigation</a> filed against the company by the North Dakota Private Investigative and Security Board for allegedly providing services without the required license. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/06/28/tigerswan-faces-lawsuit-over-unlicensed-security-operations-in-north-dakota/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Despite being turned down for a permit twice in North Dakota, TigerSwan operated on <span class="caps" style="">ETP</span>’s</a> behalf anyway.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A few days after TigerSwan’s permit was denied in Louisiana, the company filed an appeal and hired five lobbyists who work for the lobbying firm <a href="http://sostrategy.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Southern Strategy Group.</a></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At a November 9 press conference at the office of Louisiana’s Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards, groups opposing the Bayou Bridge pipeline, including the <b>Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Bold Louisiana, 350 New Orleans</b>, Atchafalaya Basin<b>keeper</b>, Gulf Restoration Network, Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association - West, and L’eau Est La Vie <b>(Water Is Life) Camp</b>, announced that the New York-based <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/Petition%20to%20Intervene%20-%20Louisiana%20-%20Nov%209%202017.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Center for Constitutional Rights (<span class="caps" style="">CCR</span>)</b> filed a petition to intervene</a> on their behalf. <span class="caps" style="">CCR</span>wants to ensure that the groups can participate in the permit appeals hearing set for December 14.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video: Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-across-nation-unite-stop-company-behind-dakota-access-pipeline">http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-across-nation-unite-stop-company-behind-dakota-access-pipeline</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The company behind the Dakota Access pipeline and <a href="http://www.energytransfer.com/ops_map.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none;">many other damaging fossil fuel projects</a>—Energy Transfer Partners—was the focus of nearly 20 actions spanning 10 U.S. states last week.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The #StopETP protests, which took place on Friday and Saturday, included a </span><a href="https://actionnetwork.org/events/flotilla-down-rise-up-to-stop-etp?referrer=&source=widget&email_referrer=&can_id=" style="text-decoration-line: none;">flotilla</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> on a Louisiana bayou, a blockade of pipeline construction equipment in Pennsylvania and a demonstration outside the Texas home of CEO Kelcy Warren.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s been impressive to see how many people have come together,” said Frankie Orona, executive director of the Society of Native Nations, a Texas-based grassroots group of indigenous people. “It’s inspiring to see how people want to keep this movement alive and keep ETP accountable.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Orona explained that he and other activists in Texas spent weeks working with organizations and organizers throughout the country to create a weekend action against ETP. Even after the protest’s initial announcement more people joined in, holding their own events in solidarity.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’ve been planning it for quite some time,” Orona said. “We put out a message [to ETP] saying, ‘We haven’t forgotten, we won’t forget.’ We’re going to … hold ETP accountable for what they’ve done.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Orona pointed to a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/energy-transfer-sues-greenpeace-claims-it-incites-eco-terrorism" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recent lawsuit</a> filed by ETP against Greenpeace International and several other environmental groups — accusing them of “eco-terrorism” </b>— as a reason why activists are uniting against the company’s “scare tactics.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” At the same time, however, it was also an opportunity for them to highlight their local pipeline battles.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anne Rolfes, national director of Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a non-profit environmental group, participated in an event where people prayed near the site of the Bayou Bridge pipeline — a project that would connect the Dakota Access pipeline to oil refineries in Louisiana. She said organizers took “this step in solidarity,” in part, after seeing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/nuns-atlantic-pipeline-2456748409.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nuns in Pennsylvania organize</a> against the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://bayoubridge.com/dt_articles/support-for-the-project/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the U.S. state of Louisiana, the typical governing body of the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">parish</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is called the Police Jury. Not every </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">parish</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is governed by a Police Jury, but 41 of the 64 parishes use this system. The Police Jury is the legislative and executive government of the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">parish</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and is elected by the voters.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards – </span><a href="https://bayoubridge.com/bayou-bridge-pipeline-backed-louisiana-gov-john-bel-edwards/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.3s linear; text-decoration-line: none;">Endorsed the project on his monthly radio show</a>, .</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">The Police Jury of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana</span> – <a href="https://bayoubridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Bayou-Bridge-Pipeline-Parish-of-Calcasieu-Resolution-of-Support.pdf" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.3s linear; text-decoration-line: none;">Copy of the Resolution adopted by the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury on February 9, 2017 in support of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline Project</a></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Sheriff’s Association</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Independent Petroleum Association of America</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consumer Energy Alliance</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana Association of Chamber of Commerce</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana Propane Gas Association</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana Oil and Gas Association</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lake Area Industry Alliance</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JSW Steel</font></span></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Nancy Landry</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 31</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Stephen Dwight</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 35</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Stuart Bishop</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 43</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Beryl Amedee</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 51</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Chad Brown</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 60</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Mike Danahay</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 33</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Mark Abraham</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 36</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Johnny Guinn</span> – Louisiana House of Representatives, District 37</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Ronnie Johns</span> – Louisiana Senator</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 700;">Hal McMillin</span> – Calcasieu Police Juror, District 14,</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nationofchange.org/2017/06/23/louisiana-joins-compact-brought-state-cops-dakota-access-protests/">https://www.nationofchange.org<b>/2017</b>/06/23/louisiana-joins-compact-brought-state-cops-dakota-access-protests/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">By Steve Horn and <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/accounts/profile/chwaltman/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Curtis Waltman</a></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On June 19, Louisiana’s Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards </span><a href="http://www.wafb.com/story/35699999/la-has-45-more-new-laws-after-gov-edwards-signs-bills" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">signed a bill into law</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> which will enter his state into the </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/10/27/emergency-assistance-law-dakota-access-pipeline-out-state-cops" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Emergency Management Assistance Compact </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">(EMAC)</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">EMAC is the compact which last year gave out-of-state cops the legal authority to flood into North Dakota during the protests against the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Dakota Access pipeline</a>, owned by <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/19688" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Energy Transfer Partners</a>. The Louisiana bill, <a href="http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1051705" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">SB 151</a>, was signed as Energy Transfer Partners has another pipeline proposed to run through Louisiana, the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/conflict-cajun-country-bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-standing-rock" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Bayou Bridge pipeline</a>. Bayou Bridge is an <a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2016/12/03/proposed-south-la-pipeline-linked-dakota-pipeline/94603448/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">extension</a> of Dakota Access, set to run from Nederland, Texas, to refinery markets and export terminals in Louisiana.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The compact, signed into existence by President Bill Clinton in 1996, was created in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew with the intent of expediting and bolstering natural disaster response efforts</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. But the federal </span><a href="https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ321/PLAW-104publ321.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">legislation creating the compact</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> also has language allowing for a governor of a state to issue an emergency order in the case of the rise of an “insurgency or enemy attack.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Louisiana legislation, which <a href="http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1051335" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">got rid of</a> its previous membership in the Interstate <a href="http://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=85681" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Compact</a>, passed unanimously in both the <a href="http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1047614" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">House of Representatives</a> and the <a href="http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1037421" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Senate</a> without debate.</font></p><div class="td-a-rec td-a-rec-id-content_inline " style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="noc-ad noc-ad-inline" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; border: 1px solid rgb(34, 34, 34); padding: 10px; background: rgb(252, 252, 252);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="fa fa-heart" aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"> NationofChange is a nonprofit organization, and this website is funded by readers like you. Please support our work. <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/nationofchange?refcode=inline" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Donate</a> or <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/nocmember?refcode=inline&recurring=1" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">give monthly</a>.</span></font></span></p></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to state campaign finance data, Governor Edwards <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/expends/vendor.php?year=2016&vendor=John+Bel+Edwards+Campaign" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">received a $5,000 campaign contribution</a> from Energy Transfer Partners during his successful 2015 run for governor, with the <b>company serving as one of his biggest donors</b>. In February, Edwards <a href="http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/02/john_bel_edwards_supports_bayo.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">endorsed</a> Bayou Bridge.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is no way to move crude in significant quantities that doesn’t have some risk associated with it,” Edwards said of the pipeline. “But ultimately the pipeline is much safer than moving it on trains or on trucks.” As DeSmog has reported, this is a talking point often conveyed by Energy Transfer Partners, even though<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/17/dakota-access-pipeline-safer-owns-rail-hub-connected-pipeline" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"> it owns an oil-by-rail terminal</a> which connects to Dakota Access in Patoka, Illinois.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Governor Edwards’ brother, Daniel Edwards, serves as <a href="http://www.tpso.org/sheriff" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">sheriff for Tangipahoa Parish</a> in Louisiana</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which is located about an hour drive north of Bayou Bridge’s end point in St. Charles Parish. Tangipahoa Parish is part of the senate district for </span><a href="http://senate.la.gov/senators/senpage.asp?SenID=6" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Senator Mack “Bodi” White</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a co-sponsor of the bill.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials from the office of Governor Edwards and Senator White did not respond to a request for comment.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; margin: 30px 0px 20px; line-height: 38px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DAPL model</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Law enforcement officers involved in the Dakota Access response effort, which has <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline-insurgencies/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">come under fire</a> for <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/06/03/standing-rock-documents-expose-inner-workings-of-surveillance-industrial-complex/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">its militarized nature</a>, have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy7uPV82hkk" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">traveled to Louisiana</a> in recent months to speak about lessons from Dakota Access which could be applied to Bayou Bridge. The protests against Dakota Access, which took form as a months-long encampment near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, were the <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/standing-rock-pipeline-fight-draws-hundreds-north-dakota-plains-n665956" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">largest mobilization</a> of Native American tribes in modern U.S. history.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As previously reported by DeSmog, the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Sheriffs’ Association <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/04/27/dakota-access-sheriffs-lobbying-military-gear" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">served as the key vehicle</a> for carrying out the emergency compact at Standing Rock</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The association has lobbied Congress for more military gear for sheriffs’ departments under the auspices of the </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/09/02/342494225/mraps-and-bayonets-what-we-know-about-the-pentagons-1033-program" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">U.S. Department of Defense’s</a><a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/09/02/342494225/mraps-and-bayonets-what-we-know-about-the-pentagons-1033-program" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 1033 program</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which enables police departments to buy surplus military gear from the department’s Defense Logistics Agency.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The current president of the Sheriffs’ Association, Sheriff Greg Champagne, oversees St. Charles Parish, the end of the line for Bayou Bridge. According to a Bayou Bridge corporate fact sheet, the <b>Sheriffs’ Association <a href="https://bayoubridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Bayou-Bridge-fact-shee-2.2.17.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">has endorsed the pipeline</a>.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In October 2016, Champagne visited Standing Rock and criticized the protesters, who call themselves “water protectors,” in a lengthy article posted both on the <a href="http://www.sheriffs.org/blog/Presidents-Podium-Dakota-Access-Pipeline" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Sheriffs’ Association website</a> and on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sheriff.gregchampagne/posts/1337399006279642" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">government Facebook page</a>. St. Charles Parish also <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3517836/completed-1102-REQA-5527-0.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">sent officers</a> to Standing Rock.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are a nation of laws. Emotion and empathy cannot carry the day. It just seems that opposition to this pipeline is not reasonably based upon legitimate environmental concerns,” Champagne wrote. “Energy independence has been one of the major goals of this country for decades. In my home state of Louisiana, we are surrounded by gas and oil pipelines and safely so.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sheriffs.org/about-nsa/leadership" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">According to his biography</a> on the Sheriffs’ Association website, Champagne in the past has attended “two international counter-terrorism programs in both <b>Israel </b>and England, which focused on the detection and prevention of terrorism.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” A member of the Houma tribe and the head of the group Bold Louisiana of Native American descent jointly responded to Champagne’s letter, saying that they too had visited Standing Rock, but had only seen peaceful and prayerful protest.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you are looking as to who has engaged in acts of war, sir, it might be best to see who came for one,” <a href="http://bridgethegulfproject.org/blog/2016/letter-st-charles-parish-sheriff-greg-champagne-response-comments-about-standing-rock" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">they wrote</a>. “A simple Internet search will produce countless images of unarmed Water Protectors being confronted by military-grade weaponry pointed at them by law enforcement.”</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; margin: 30px 0px 20px; line-height: 38px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EMAC abuse?</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>It has been debated whether or not the “insurgency or enemy attack” legislative language found within EMAC pertains to mass protest,</b> but regardless, the gray area has created an opening for state-level law enforcement agencies. The Interstate Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Compact, signed into law in 1993 <a href="http://gohsep.la.gov/ABOUT/AUTHORITIES/Louisiana-Disaster-Act" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">as a section</a> of the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act (Louisiana Disaster Act, for short),<b> had no language found within the bill about an “insurgency or enemy attack.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>”</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The first major instance of EMAC’s use for a protest movement <a href="https://patch.com/new-jersey/oceancity/150-state-troopers-headed-baltimore-riot-aftermath" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">came in Baltimore</a> in April 2015 in <a href="http://media.nbcwashington.com/documents/Baltimore+Bills+-+Frederick+County+sheriffs.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">response to demonstrations</a> pertaining to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">law enforcement killing of Freddie Grey</a>. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At that time, only a few agencies answered the EMAC call, including the New Jersey State Police and the Pennsylvania State Police, while the law enforcement crackdown was bolstered by mostly local and state officers in Maryland.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2016, the </span><a href="https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2016/11/16/161116_1016-RR-4781.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">EMAC was again put to use</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to deal with those protesting at the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> According to an “</span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2016%20Republican%20National%20Convention%20EMAC%20AAR.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">after action report</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” published by EMAC,<b> 1,071 out-of-state police officers came from 18 different states to assist with law enforcement efforts at the RNC.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><img class="aligncenter" src="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-21%20at%202.25.10%20AM.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; text-align: center; clear: both; display: block; margin: 6px auto 21px;" /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Cleveland, Mayor Frank Jackson <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/City%20of%20Cleveland%20EMAC%20Request.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">requested</a> that Republican Governor John Kasich declare a state of emergency in February, some five months before the <b>RNC</b>. A month later, the City of Cleveland signed a state emergency <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Cleveland%2C%20State%20of%20Ohio%20MOU.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">memorandum of understanding</a> with the Ohio Department of Public Safety, and the next month, Kasich signed the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Kasich%20Emergency%20Declaration.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">emergency order</a> triggering EMAC. The after action report for the RNC spells out what law enforcement sees as the major advantage of having EMAC as a tool in the toolbox.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of the great advantages of EMAC is that troublesome and often complicated legal issues are resolved upfront within the EMAC law,” wrote EMAC in the report. “These issues include tort liability, workers’ compensation, reimbursement, and acceptance of licensure.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For Standing Rock, nearly 40 law enforcement agencies from around the Midwest answered the call </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">made by North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple. They responded by bringing </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">assault rifles, thermal imaging cameras, and military vehicles.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> It was the first instance where the emergency compact was used to create what resembled a massive law enforcement militia to suppress a protest.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">After EMAC was put into action, 23 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter on November 14, 2016 to then-President Barack Obama expressing their concerns about the compact’s potential misuse.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “use of the EMAC [for Dakota Access] raises questions when compared to the original legislative intent of Congress in 1996 to allow member states to provide emergency assistance after natural disasters overwhelm a state’s capacity to respond,” <a href="https://connolly.house.gov/uploads/2016-11-14,%20joint%20letter%20to%20president%20obama,%20dakota%20access%20pipeline.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote the members of the House</a>. “Its use for additional law enforcement personnel and equipment to respond to this peaceful demonstration is part of a recent trend away from historical precedent.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a recent case in point showing of the compact mixed uses, Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin received two EMAC requests in late October 2016: One from North Dakota to assist with Standing Rock and one from North Carolina when the state’s coast was battered by Hurricane Matthew. While Standing Rock protests did not result in any deaths, Hurricane Matthew claimed the lives of 26 people in North Carolina.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/mar/02/wisconsin-governor-NoDAPL-EMAC/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Emails obtained by MuckRock</a> show that the Walker administration chose to aid North Dakota rather than North Carolina, which experienced $2.75 billion in damages from the hurricane</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. An email from Brian Satula, head of Wisconsin Emergency Management, sent to the Walker administration, explains that Wisconsin “has not been able to adequately fill those mission requests,” in reference to North Carolina.</span></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px 20px; line-height: 38px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No Bayou Bridge “direct tie”</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Considering the Louisiana bill’s recent passage, though, it appears EMAC’s use beyond natural disaster zones could just be getting started. Mike Steele, communications director for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness, said there is no connection between Bayou Bridge and Louisiana’s EMAC bill.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I don’t believe there is a direct tie other than pipeline related emergency being one of many types [of] emergencies where we may need assistance from officials outside the state,” said Steele. “I believe this bill just addresses a few technical issues like liability.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/EMAC%20talking%20points%20%28002%29.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">talking points sheet</a> on the EMAC bill supplied to DeSmog by Steele actually lists Dakota Access as one of its prominent, recent uses.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, a related<a href="http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=17rs&b=HB654&sbi=y" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> bill</a> proposed in the Louisiana State Legislature would <a href="http://press-herald.com/bill-would-add-extra-fee-to-home-insurance-to-fund-gohsep/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">levy an insurance surcharge</a> and give the revenue from that to the Emergency Management Assistance Trust Fund. This may indicate that Louisiana is trying to get ahead of the kind of financial woes currently facing North Dakota, which has footed a <a href="https://apnews.com/c53e57e2321b480abecc84710c533c02/dakota-access-protest-policing-costs-exceed-22m" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">$22 million bill</a> for all of the out-of-state assistance it received under EMAC to handle the Dakota Access protests.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">For months, North Dakota had attempted to secure federal funding, but it will receive <a href="https://www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/5/heitkamp-helps-secure-federal-funds-in-congressional-spending-bill-that-could-help-reimburse-nd-for-dapl-law-enforcement-costs" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">$15 million in repayments</a> as part of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/hr244/BILLS-115hr244enr.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">congressional spending bill</a> passed in May. That, however, will still leave North Dakotans on the hook for about $7 million of the EMAC costs.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bayou-bridge-bold-louisiana-2449096658.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/bayou-bridge-bold-louisiana-2449096658.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><a href="http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/06/st_james_residents_enviros_cha.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/06/st_james_residents_enviros_cha.html</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no pix link</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bayou Bridge Pipeline permit challenged in new lawsuit</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Updated on June 27, 2017 at 6:34 PM Posted on June 23, 2017 at 4:43 </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Mark Schleifstein mschleifstein@nola.com,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline is the target of a new lawsuit filed by several environmental groups and residents of the St. James community in St. James Parish. They want to overturn the permit, granted by Louisiana Department of Natural Resources for the controversial 162 1/2-mile project planned between Lake Charles and St. James.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With Bayou Bridge Pipeline, La. weighs oil, environment</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With Bayou Bridge Pipeline, La. weighs oil, environment</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$670 million, 162-mile project would cut through Atchafalaya Basin, largest U.S. wetland</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pipeline is a joint project by subsidiaries of Phillips 66 Partners, Energy Transfer Partners LP and Sunoco Logistic Partners LP. It would move crude oil from major hub at Nederland, Texas through the environmentally sensitive Atchafalaya Basin to NuStar Energy LP's terminal in St. James.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Department of Natural Resources issued a permit April 3, and denied requests for reconsideration on May 1 and May 16. Other permits are pending from the state Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bayou Bridge Pipeline backed by Gov. John Bel Edwards</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He voices support for controversial project during monthly radio show</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On May 11, U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, asked the corps' New Orleans District to commission a full environmental impact statement investigation, a process that could take years. "It is my intent to ensure that the Army Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer Partners (which will build the pipeline) work diligently to minimize the possible risks associated with this project and adequately assess the potential impact this pipeline would have on the surrounding community and environment," Richmond wrote to Col. Michael Clancy, corps district commander.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials representing the Bayou Bridge partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday (June 23). However, the pipeline has garnered wide support by elected officials and industry representatives in Louisiana, including Gov. John Bel Edwards and most members of the state's congressional delegation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Department of Natural Resources spokesman said the agency thinks its permit decision complies with state law. He said responses to specific assertions in the suit would have to wait until the agency responded in court.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suit was filed May 31 in 23rd Judicial District Court by attorneys with the <b>Tulane Environmental Law Clinic</b>, on behalf of the residents and environmental groups. It says Department of Natural Resources officials did not adequately address the potential effects of <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">accidents or spills from the pipeline on the largely African-American residents of St. James, many of whom live on streets with a history of being blocked during emergencies at existing nearby oil, gas and chemical facilities. The St. James community does not have a fire department, the suit says.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"You never know what you are going to find when you come home, said Genevieve Butler, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and vice-chairman of the Humanitarian Enterprise of Loving People, a local civic group, in a news release announcing the suit. "You don't know what you are going to smell, what you are going to see. We're already so impacted now, how much more will Bayou Bridge release?"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">State officials also did not take into account, as required by Louisiana law, the potential effects of spills on wetlands in areas where the pipeline crosses part of the Louisiana coastal zone, </span>the suit said. And it said they discounted the potential effects of a spill in Bayou Lafourche, a drinking water source for many Lafourche Parish residents, by not requiring deep directional drilling techniques to build the pipeline across the waterway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The suit said the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority gave its assent to the project by simply clicking on an email link entitled "standard no objection," rather than addressing whether the pipeline would affect a joint state-parish project to increase the flow of freshwater down the bayou to St. James Parish's water treatment plant</span>s.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the suit, the plaintiffs argue that state officials did not follow state Supreme Court rulings requiring that they consider alternative routes and transportation methods in determining whether the pipeline and its route represent the best environmental and economic alternative. They cite several instances where the permit approval disregarded the Department of Natural Resources' own permitting guidelines. Among them: a provision requiring use of existing canals, directional drilling or other techniques "to minimize the number and size of access canals, to minimize changes of natural systems and to minimize adverse impacts on natural areas and wildlife and fisheries habitat."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Harry Joseph Sr., pastor of <b>Mount Triumph Baptist Church</b> in St. James; Butler, a resident of the community; the Humanitarian Enterprise of Loving People, an organization of pastors and residents on the west bank of St. James Parish; the Gulf Restoration Network; Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, an environmental organization focusing on the river basin; and <b>Bold Louisiana,</b> an environmental group opposing the pipeline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his request for an environmental review, Richmond raised many of the same issues as the lawsuit:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What effect could the Bayou Bridge Pipeline have on residents' drinking water?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How will development of the pipeline add to the current flood risk of the area?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How will the Atchafalaya Basin and its crawfish farms be affected?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How will local drainage systems be affected by pipeline leaks?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How will pipeline construction effect evacuation routes for St. James Parish?</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/14/clash-over-bayou-bridge-pipeline-ratchets-after-louisiana-pipeline-explosion">https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/14/clash-over-bayou-bridge-pipeline-ratchets-after-louisiana-pipeline-explosion</a>
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dakota Access Owner Coordinates with Sheriffs</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As protests heated up at Standing Rock in October, the Morton County Sheriffs' Department <a href="http://billingsgazette.com/business/national-sheriffs-group-pledges-help-with-pipeline-policing/article_6b4b666e-a23b-563b-b116-95e996b28cd1.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">requested support</a> from the Sheriffs' Association, which coincided with out-of-state cops flooding the state in assistance.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In December, DeSmog reported on an audio recording first obtained and published by New York Daily News writer Shaun King, in which<b> Energy Transfer Partners executive Matthew Ramsey said that the Sheriffs' Association <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/12/15/audio-dakota-access-pipeline-election-night-changed-everything" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">worked in close coordination</a> with his company, the pipeline's majority owner, against those opposing it at Standing Rock. </b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>We met with some of the officials in North Dakota [during a recent trip to the state],” said Ramsey in the recording. “We met with the National Sheriff's Association.</b> People are tired of this. They're tired of seeing what's going on in the community and we think that the tide has turned and people are understanding what a great project this would be for the State of North Dakota.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, the Sheriffs’ Association did send training staff and office personnel to Standing Rock. The group tasked Dane County, Wisconsin Sheriff Dave Mahoney with training North Dakota agencies, which had little experience policing protests.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When the situation in North Dakota began over the pipeline, I had been asked by the National Sheriff’s Association and by the Department of Justice to travel to North Dakota to speak to the sheriffs who didn’t have much experience with large gatherings,” Mahoney said in an interview.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">While adamant his police force handled the response in Standing Rock in the same peaceful way as in <b>2011, when the Dane County Sheriff's Office handled <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_protests" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">over 100,000 people protesting</a> Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker's Budget Repair Bill, </b>the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/22/taxpayer-funded-horror-at-standing-rock.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">results in North Dakota tell a different story</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Greg Champagne, president of the National Sheriffs' Association and sheriff of St. Charles Parish in Louisiana</b>, was also intimately involved in Standing Rock. In late October, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Champagne traveled there for a publicity appearance, which was funded by the <span class="caps" style="">EMAC</span> agreement.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> He was toured around the police lines and the construction sites, afterwards posting on Facebook a </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sheriff.gregchampagne/posts/1337399006279642" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">lengthy rebuttal</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> to protesters and the media, which received 46,000 shares.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office also sent two cameramen to video the cleanup after the eviction of demonstrators </span>at one of the Standing Rock encampments. An open records request for that footage is still pending.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For its part, the Sheriffs’ Association told DeSmog, “What we were trying to do was help the local sheriffs, as a national organization, to coordinate the actions through the <span class="caps">EMAC</span> to get them people that would make themselves available.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The association added that although the intent of its coordination was not to train law enforcement officials present at Standing Rock, that “per things like this, there is always training going on and coordinated tactics between North Dakota, Wyoming, Wisconsin or whoever else was there. We are also helpful with guidance and coordinating the knowledge as well by having people there like Dave [Mahoney, the Dane County Sheriff] who have better knowledge of large protest gatherings.”</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sheriffs Tackle Bayou Bridge</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the aftermath of Standing Rock, the Sheriffs' Association has remained active on pipelines owned by Energy Transfer Partners, including its proposed <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/conflict-cajun-country-bayou-bridge-pipeline-louisiana-standing-rock" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bayou Bridge pipeline</a> through Louisiana.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/14/clash-over-bayou-bridge-pipeline-ratchets-after-louisiana-pipeline-explosion" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog previously reported</a>, <b>Joseph Lopinto </b>— an attorney with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana and <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/state_rep_joe_lopinto_set_to_r.html" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">former Republican state legislator</a> — criticized the federal government's Standing Rock response while speaking on behalf of the National Sheriffs’ Association at a February public meeting related to the Bayou Bridge pipeline.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vid]</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>The federal government failed to provide local law enforcement [in Standing Rock, North Dakota] with support to control hostile, often violent protesters that caused millions of dollars in property damage and shot at law enforcement officers,” he said at the convening. “The federal government failed to provide local law enforcement with the resources they need to deal with violent and unruly protests.”</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Policing Protest</font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>