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Louisiana’s new law went into effect on Aug. 1. It added pipelines and pipeline constructions sites to a list of “critical infrastructure.” Unauthorized entry of critical infrastructure is punishable by up to five years in prison. Disrupting operations is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. [Mike Ludwig / Truthout]
A number of states began introducing “critical infrastructure” bills after the protests at Standing Rock. Oklahoma passed a law last spring. “Drawing inspiration” from the Oklahoma legislation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group of state legislators backed by corporate sponsors, finalized a model Critical Infrastructure Protection Act in January. Similar bills were later introduced in Iowa, Ohio, Wyoming, and Minnesota. [Alleen Brown and Will Parrish / The Intercept]
In April, Iowa’s governor signed into law a bill that the Huffington Post described as a “ramped-up version” of ALEC’s model bill. The Iowa law criminalizes protest on anything that could be conceivably understood as part of the fossil fuel industry’s “critical infrastructure.” It makes an action that intends a substantial and widespread “interruption or impairment of a fundamental service” of gas, oil, petroleum or refined petroleum products a felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. [Jeff Biggers / Huffington Post] The bill was developed by a group that included Energy Transfer Partners, the Dakota Access Pipeline parent company. [Alleen Brown / The Intercept]
The chairperson of the Iowa Sierra Club told Public News Service that historically, critical infrastructure has been a term applied to public lines that transport electricity, gas, and water. “The bill is particularly dangerous because it slips in the idea that a crude oil pipeline owned by a massive corporation not even located in Iowa is critical infrastructure,” she said. [Roz Brown / Public News Service]
Louisiana’s law, as originally drafted, also criminalized acts beyond what was included in the ALEC model bill. It would have created the crime of “conspiring” to trespass on critical infrastructure sites, punishable by up to five years in prison. A lawyer from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the Bayou Bridge Protestors, dubbed it “ALEC-plus.” [Alleen Brown and Will Parrish / The Intercept] The US Protest Law Tracker website, which follows state and federal initiatives that limit the right to protest, explains that, as originally introduced, the law was written “such that individuals who only planned to hold a peaceful protest on infrastructure property could be prosecuted.” Ultimately, the law hewed closely to ALEC’s model bill. [International Center for Not-for-Profit Law]
ALEC’s influence on the criminal legal system is not new. In 1995, 25 states adopted “Truth in Sentencing” laws developed by the group. ALEC pushed “Stand Your Ground” laws across the country. It was also influential in lobbying for laws that benefited its private prison company sponsors, including Arizona’s infamous immigration law, Senate Bill 1070. [Mike Elk and Bob Sloan / The Nation] Most recently, a 2017 report by Color of Change and the ACLU looked at the insurance corporations participating in and profiting from the bail bond industry. It found that the big insurance companies behind bail “have been very effective at crafting and institutionalizing laws, regulations, and practices that protect their profits.” The key to this was the more than 20-year relationship the industry has cultivated with ALEC, to write and promote the passage of laws in state legislatures, while “very effectively derailing alternatives and reforms.” [Color of Change and ACLU]
The anti-protest bills that have been introduced since 2016 have had another set of influential supporters: law enforcement groups. In These Times reported this year that law enforcement in at least eight states lobbied in support of anti-protest bills in 2017 and 2018. These bills included provisions to increase the penalties for blocking highways as well as measures similar to those in Louisiana’s bill to criminalize protest against oil pipelines. Because police support for legislation rarely takes place in public it is impossible to know the full extent across the country. Traci Yoder of the National Lawyers Guild, who analyzed the role of ALEC and corporations like Energy Transfer Partners in pushing anti-protest bills, told In These Times that law enforcement support for this legislation is “a direct response to the success and visibility of recent movements of color such as Black Lives Matter and #NoDAPL.” She added: ”The collusion we are seeing between law enforcement, lawmakers, and corporate interests is undemocratic and designed to deter social movements for racial and environmental justice.” [Simon Davis-Cohen and Sarah Lazare / In These Times]
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