Congress examines claims oil companies harassing climate activists

Over the last five years pipeline giant Energy Transfer has filed dozens of lawsuits and subpoenas against people and groups that participated in and supported protests against their Dakota Access pipeline in 2016. The Dallas-based company claimed the protests, which resulted in a months long delay of the project, were part of a conspiracy to defame Energy Transfer, claiming billions of dollars in damages -- a claim dismissed by a federal judge in 2019. Now, Congress is examining whether lawsuits by Energy Transfer and other companies in the oil industry are part of a strategy to harass activists into giving up their fight against greenhouse gas emissions. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, called the effect of he legal actions "chilling" at hearing Wednesday.

"Wealthy and powerful corporate entities are dragging citizens and public interest opponents through meritless but protracted and extremely costly litigation to expose anyone who dares stand up to them to personal and financial ruin," he said. The hearing is the latest salvo in the climate change debate. Oil companies and their Republican allies in Congress criticize Democratic efforts to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions as impractical and likely to drive up energy prices, while Democrats attack oil companies as opportunists seeking to enrich their shareholders at the expense of the planet. "Certain groups have sought to misrepresent Exxon Mobil’s positions and its support for effective policy solutions by recasting genuine policy debates as a disinformation campaign," Todd Spitler, a spokesman for Houston-based Exxon, said in an email. "These charges are baseless and any suggestion to the contrary is false." A report this week by the activist group EarthRights International found more than 150 individuals and organizations were targeted by lawsuits and subpoenas by oil companies over the past decade. Those legal actions include Exxon's efforts to prove activists and state officials in New York and Massachusetts were conspiring against them through climate change litigation and TransCanada's lawsuits against protestors over its failed Keystone XL pipeline.