Source: Climate Depot (via The Guardian)
Well, well, well—looks like Greenpeace finally got a taste of its own medicine. A North Dakota jury has slammed the environmental darling with a bill for hundreds of millions, payable to Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based oil and gas titan behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Announced today, this delicious verdict ties back to the 2016 and 2017 protests that tried—and failed—to stop the pipeline. Energy Transfer claimed Greenpeace’s “misinformation campaign” incited criminal antics and smeared their good name, demanding $300 million. The jury? They ate it up, siding with the company on most counts. Ouch.
This has been a long time coming. Energy Transfer argued that Greenpeace didn’t just cheer from the sidelines—they whipped up a frenzy that crossed legal lines. Meanwhile, Greenpeace is crying foul, clutching their pearls and insisting this lawsuit is a corporate plot to “destroy the right to peaceful protest.” Constitutional rights experts are wringing their hands too, fretting about a “chilling effect” on free speech. Boo-hoo. The jury wasn’t buying the sob story, and now Greenpeace is staring down a payout that might just bankrupt their U.S. outfit. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
Deepa Padmanabha, Greenpeace’s senior legal adviser, tried to spin it:
“What we saw over these three weeks was Energy Transfer’s blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. And while they also tried to distort the truth about Greenpeace’s role in the protests, we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take.”
Nice try, Deepa, but the jury saw through the sanctimony. Energy Transfer even played a clever card, suing three Greenpeace entities as one big happy family—checkmate.
So, what’s the takeaway? Is this a glorious win for holding activist groups accountable when their antics go too far? You bet it is. Greenpeace had it coming, and now they’re squirming. Sure, they’ll wail about corporate overreach and appeal until the cows come home, but for now, let’s savor the moment. The Dakota Access Pipeline’s been pumping oil for years despite their tantrums, and this ruling? It’s the cherry on top.
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They will get Soros to pay since USAID funds dried up.
“They will get Soros to pay……”
Exactly how deep are Soros’ pockets anyway? He’s been doling out money to leftist organizations for quite some time now, hasn’t he?
Does he have kids who will inherit his fortune when he’s gone?
Answering my own questions…..
George Soros – Wikipedia
“As of October 2023, he had a net worth of US$6.7 billion..”
According to the Wikipedia link, he’s already donated $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations, and $15 billion of it has already been distributed. He has five children and is 94 years old.
I wouldn’t trust W..pedia on such matters. But even with these numbers he threw more money at his primary “talent agency” than is still traceable as his.
Don’t forget he’s been leveraging USAID money and if you look into it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s get NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and other corrupt U.S. give aways of our money.
A juicy target for a claw-back, maybe even RICO who knows?
I believe his son, Alex, has more or less already taken over his empire.
Yes, his son will make the original Soros look like a saint.
Well, he is not Rothschild… but he is the #1 cashier for the entire Comintern 2.0 and a lot of big fish joined the maze of foundations paying the musicians.
Specifically, assets of Gates directly overlap with Soros. Remember that internet gumshoe discovery, the handler of Greta Thunberg (though she turned out much more than this, among the top ranks of EU Holdrenjudend in general) — Luisa Marie Neubauer? She works for “ONE Foundation”. ONE Foundation is a toy of Bono, Gates and Soros, used for promoting ManBearPig awareness. And that’s, um, but one organization of this sort, both Soros and Gates still have their own. Others of their circle… did anyone even count them? How deep do you think all those pockets might be?
I remember attending a Holdren seminar at Cal in 1976 – subject was Prop 15 on the June 1976 ballot. My impression was that he was more of an activist than a scientist. Funny thing about the talk – he was advocating “clean coal” over nuclear.
Holdrenjugend has a nice ring to it.
Unfortunately, yes.
Georgie’s ROI from the Democrat Underground is going to look a bit sick(er) now that “AutoPen” Joe has had his nib blunted.
Probably not a good idea to put too much hope into the Autopen thing. Heritage Foundation investigation relied on signatures as published in the Federal Register. Trouble is the FR versions are not photocopies and just add a digital graphic version of presidential signatures so they’re identical, but not Autopen. The same applies to Trump signatures in FR published docs.
There may have been shenanigans with the unauthorized use of Autopen by Biden staff, but it would probably require an insider to blow the whistle to prove it.
There are clear instances where the autopen must have been used. Documents that claim to have been signed in DC when Biden was elsewhere.
If Biden granted permission, it is legal.
The problem is, finding any evidence proving or disproving Biden granted permission. Permission for autopen legally can be verbal.
If Biden granted permission, it is legal.
Exactly. I previously mentioned that there is a DOJ document about exactly this.
I’m not convinced this is actually intended to overturn any of the orders.
A whistle blower who would never make it home from a long walk.
Somewhere there is an NGO, or several of them, that will bail out totally leftist GREEN PEACE, using federal taxpayer dollars, that DOGE has not yet discovered
.
All will be done on the sly.
No marking of US treasury payment history, so nothing can be traced.
.
The money may come from an offshore tax haven, such as Panama, where lots of hot money is “parked”.
The next “made for TV” news is the Tesla terrorists entering jails with looooong sentences, including big mouth, crazy as a bat Waltz.
Schadenfreude!
Is there some reason Greenpeace won’t appeal?
Because smelly anarchists are typically unappealing?
Very Good!
Heh. Yeah. But they are professional “anarchists”. They have lawyers.
But they definitely revolt…
I expect they will, and my pessimism says either the verdict itself will be thrown out, or the amount reduced significantly.
Maybe, but this is a state court case and appeals would presumably be to ND appeals courts in a pretty red state. Not sure they could find a way to appeal to Federal Courts. Trump has a similar issue with New York’s bogus fraud award, but he should win on appeal since the case was obviously nonsense.
Here’s one bill that will be paid
The state of North Dakota spent approximately $38 million on law enforcement and emergency services during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017. This amount covered security measures, including the deployment of law enforcement officers and equipment, as well as cleanup efforts after the protests ended.
The state later sought federal reimbursement for these costs, arguing that the protests were of national significance. However, the federal government only reimbursed a portion of the expenses.
Do they have an adequate supply of bananas?
It’s good for the current shareholders. A little late for us, though; we sold our interests a couple of years ago. (Good riddence. These pass-through partnerships are not good for the small invester. Unless you like filing state returns in 30 or 40 states in which the partnership does business…)
ouch! that’s gonna leave a mark.
Greenpeace == Darkviolence.
This is exactly what should be happening to these environmental groups that inevitably have no cogent solutions to the energy shortages that would result if their inane fossil-fuel replacement proposals were to be adopted. They’re stupid enough to believe that by blocking pipelines and coal plants they’ll automatically cause governments to force people into depending on wind and solar for their energy needs. If they feel so strongly about the issue, let them go off the grid and let every one else have his/her choice. Apparently they’re not aware that in spite of their antics, the last 35 years have seen a 60% rise in global emissions regardless of the billions spent on subsidies for green initiatives. So who’s really listening to them anyway?
I wonder how many use Starlink for their internet access.
For the first time ever, I have reliable and fast internet. Starlink is my only option and I’m thankful for it.
“…we instead reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to non-violence in every action we take.” Kind of ignores the actual offence of damage to property.
Greenpeace doesn’t conduct violence, they leave that up to their “less than wise” worshipers.
If a general orders his battalions to attack civilians, he is exempt, right?
/sarc
The Guardian is ranting about slapp
It hasn’t gone down well there at all!
The Guardian needs a good slapp
What a lovely precedent. Hope to see thousands of similar suits soon.
Imagine the penalty for whoever is inciting morons to attack Teslas.
Rick Wilson of The Lincoln Project comes to mind. Elon booted him from X for posting about attacking Tesla. He is the type of American Polemic that needs to face harsh, harsh penalties.
So not a fluke, the Brit 2.0 became clumsy. Remember how Brit 1.0 Whiggery went?..
Greenpeace hit with $667 million judgement.
“…massive financial blow to the group that environmentalists say could chill future climate advocacy”
https://x.com/RyanMaue/status/1902479326626373709
About a decade ago I read where Greenpeace had to raise about $1 million/day for its efforts and awareness raising.
I can’t imagine how much of that covers lawyers and other non-environmental efforts.
Beautiful! It’s about time!
The second stupidest person I ever met in my life was a local Mainer who was goading the Penobscot Tribe into joining the Dakotas in “solidarity” to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Bad move, I felt, to exploit Native Americans as front men for a futile gesture to hobble the cheapest, safest way to transport petroleum vital for a modern economy.
Haven’t Native Americans suffered enough without Luddites manipulating them into looking ridiculous?
I’m glad Greenpeace flubbed this misbegotten, retrograde crusade.
Totally agree, but please don’t be insulting Luddites like that ………….
However wrong they were, their perceived grievance was actually real, as opposed to this crap we’re having to live through.
Mr. phil: Defending Luddites??!! Well, it’s funny at least, unlike comments defending the indefensible. You know who I’m talkin’ ’bout.
Well, if they don’t like «blatant disregard for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe», and the tribe actually does have some or other opinion on this matter to voice in the first place, could they simply refer to said opinion as it was expressed by the tribe itself somewhere?
Of course, this could still involve other clowns. I mean, the tribe is probably in a precarious position depending on USG a lot, USG exists mainly to run patronage schemes, and Green Peas are not some invasive species carried to Earth by the enigmatic Space Bats… so there’s also that.
So mostly it looks like the Green Peas and their little friends in the relevant places are too lazy to even fake it on the level of hiring one actual member of the tribe as their mouthpiece.
Lots of things being cut off lately-
Trump’s $175M penalty for allowing trans swimmer Lia Thomas to compete
Not enough(!) cut off….
Sanity prevailed recently in Oz court too-
Santos wins legal battle against Tiwi Islands elders over $5.7b Barossa gas project’s underwater pipeline – ABC News
and the green scambos had to cough up-
Lawyers for Tiwi Island group that tried to block gas project ordered to pay $9 million to Santos – ABC News
Cool!!!!! Now send US Marshals to arrest their America hating asses.
Here’s the Canadian (oh-so-polite) version of a Texas-TEA Party:
“Build Canada now: An Open Letter to the Leaders of …” Media statement – March 18, 2025
Asking nicely to expedite oil & gas pipelines and terminals / ports.
https://www.tcenergy.com/newsroom/statements/2025-03-19-build-canada-now-an-urgent-plan-to-strengthen-economic-sovereignty/
It looks like they took a page out of the DJT playbook. GO GO GO
Obama is the real villain for requiring a second EIS after the pipeline was fully permitted. That’s what inspired the $100’s of millions of damages and clean up costs from the protest encampment. But if it wasn’t for obstructionist organizations in the business of keeping their lobbyists and lawyers funded there wouldn’t be such a thing as an Obama obstructionist presidency. Justice served.
As an EX member of ‘Greenpeace’ I applaud the ruling (:-))
Greenpeace lost it’s way decades ago & became ‘Greenpiss‘ – a home for rebels without a cause or any knowledge.
You omitted intelligence, wisdom, and compassion.
I think you mean “rebels without a clue”
Sort of like the pro-Hamas protests on campuses.
When the take over a part of the campus and claim it is a “free zone,” that is insurrection, not protected free speech.
Sort of like the Extinction Rebellion taking over sections of roads. Beyond the boundaries of free speech.
Let’s not even get into the 10 months of Portland riots.
During the women’s suffrage era (1920 ish), women stood outside the White House fence. The stood. The did not chant or yell. They held signs (Mr. President, when will we be allowed to vote?). A true peaceful protest well within the First Amendment.
Given how the environmentalists and others amped up the cost of the Trans Mountain and other pipelines in BC, it is a wonder that no similar suits are forthcoming in Canada.
Only 8 years of litigation. Imagine a business project 8 years long.