by Jason Isaac
Fueled by the explosive rise of artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it, America’s demand for electricity has surged to record highs. Meeting that demand will require unprecedented investment in reliable, affordable energy. Yet just as the need for dependable power grows more urgent, radical climate activists are working to choke off the very projects that promise to supply it and are threatening the integrity of the American judicial system in the process.
The clearest example of this troubling trend came earlier this year, when Greenpeace International filed a lawsuit in the Netherlands against the American company Energy Transfer, an extraordinary attempt to overturn a verdict issued by an American court. In the case, a North Dakota jury ordered Greenpeace to pay roughly $660 million in damages for its role in the disruptive 2016 and 2017 protests targeting Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access Pipeline.
During the North Dakota trial, jurors heard how the organization engaged in a campaign of defamation, disruption, and property damage that led to costly delays in the pipeline’s construction. One of Greenpeace’s central falsehoods was that the pipeline would cut through sacred tribal lands. In reality, Energy Transfer worked directly with tribal leaders and routed the pipeline to avoid such areas, a fact Greenpeace chose to ignore.
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Greenpeace was also found to have dispatched paid protesters to the construction site who were carrying tools that were later used to lock agitators to equipment. These “hired guns” trained protesters who assaulted law enforcement officers, set fires, and caused untold environmental damage by leaving behind 48 million pounds of garbage.
Sensing that it was likely to lose, Greenpeace filed a countersuit in the European Union, claiming Energy Transfer’s case violated a new EU directive against “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation,” or SLAPPs. That measure was meant to stop frivolous lawsuits designed to silence critics, not to shield activist groups from the consequences of their own unlawful actions.
The implications of this transnational lawsuit are staggering for American energy security and judicial independence. Greenpeace’s attorneys have said that if they win, they will seek enforcement in any jurisdiction where Energy Transfer holds assets, and those assets “would be subject to seizure.” In other words, a foreign court could soon decide the fate of an American company, and by extension, the energy infrastructure that powers our economy.