Environmental activist groups expected to ramp up protests against energy infrastructure projects
April 10, 2017
The Trump administration may be bad for the policy agenda of environmental activism groups but good for those groups' fundraising, as some of them have signaled their intention to ramp up protests to a number of the administration's energy policy proposals.
"I think we would say there is no question (they will ramp up protests), but it was happening even before Trump won the election," said Dan Byers, the vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy.
Byers told TI News Daily they would use the "Keystone model because it was very effective, a symbolic litmus test," referring to the years-long protests of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.
That pipeline, proposed to carry oil from Alberta in Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, was successfully stalled for years under the Obama administration. Just days after taking office, however, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to advance the pipeline, and the U.S. Department of State issued a permit for the project last month.
That permit is now subject to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups March 30.
Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and others are challenging the permit, claiming the decision to grant it was based on incomplete and outdated information.
"Since Trump was elected, yes, (environmental groups) do have less leverage in Washington, but they have been able to fundraise off of Trump," Byers said. "I think they will intensify litigation. The keep-it-in-the-ground movement is a serious threat."
Retired U.S. Army Capt. James McCormick, program director for Vets4Energy, told TI News Daily that the "well-funded and organized few who oppose America's energy security have a military-like strategy to fight against our country’s energy security, and our development of safe, clean energy..."
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