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For Immediate Release
April, 11 2025, 02:35pm EDT
Contact:
Lindsay Bigda, Communications Director, Democracy Resilience Program, Greenpeace USA, lbigda@greenpeace.org
Keystone oil spill shows need to protect rights to protest and free speech
BISMARCK, North Dakota
In response to a reported 3,500 barrels of oil spilling from the Keystone pipeline this week in North Dakota, Sushma Raman, Interim Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, said:
“We know fossil fuels are unhealthy at every stage of their life-cycle. There is no failsafe way to transport oil and gas, and the risks unfairly fall on the people who live near the route, while the company reaps the benefits. The Keystone spill – the latest in a long history of spills – shows exactly why we need to protect protest, free speech, and the right to speak up against harm. Everyday people, public watchdogs, and advocacy groups have a right to raise their voices and criticize a corporation when their health and livelihoods are on the line.
“Yet this type of ordinary advocacy is exactly what is under attack in the more than $660M jury verdict against Greenpeace entities in a lawsuit brought by pipeline company Energy Transfer. Oil companies know that protest works – which is why they’re trying to make the stakes so high no one will be willing to take the risk,” Raman said.
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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'Bloodless Coup': NC Supreme Court Partially Upholds GOP Vote-Tossing Effort
"It is no small thing to overturn the results of an election in a democracy by throwing out ballots that were legally cast consistent with all election laws in effect on the day of the election," one dissenting justice said.
Apr 12, 2025
In what North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein called a "dark day" for the state, the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday delivered a partial victory to Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin, who is challenging some 65,000 votes in his bid to overturn the narrow win of his Democratic opponent and incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs.
The Supreme Court, ruling 4-2, partially overturned an appeals court decision earlier this month that gave all the challenged voters 15 days to affirm their identities. Instead, the state's highest court ruled that around 60,000 ballots with registration inconsistencies would not be challenged, but approximately 5,000 overseas or military voters would have to verify their identities within 30 days. Riggs said she would challenge the ruling in federal court, and asked the court to temporarily block the order.
"I'm the proud daughter of a 30-year military veteran who was deployed overseas, and it is unacceptable that the court is choosing to selectively disenfranchise North Carolinians serving our country, here and overseas," Riggs said in a statement. "While I'm gratified to see the Court of Appeals reversed on the erroneous decision to potentially disenfranchise the more than 60,000 North Carolinians whose registration my opponent has recklessly challenged, I will not waiver in my fight to protect the fundamental freedoms for which our military service members and their families have sacrificed so much."
"This shocking decision abandons the judiciary's most basic role, to protect the rights of the people, and sanctions an outright attempt to steal an election."
Riggs won the November contest to remain on the state Supreme Court by 734 votes, but Griffin has challenged several thousand votes, predominantly on two grounds: Around 60,000 of the challenged votes are from in-state voters whose driver's license or social security numbers were missing from a state database of registered voters, while another approximately 2,000 to 7,000 are overseas or military voters who did not show ID when voting absentee. A significant number of the votes he challenged belonged to people living in Democratic-leaning counties.
The state Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the 60,000 in-state voters should not be challenged because their rights should not be denied due to “mistakes made by negligent election officials in registering citizens who are otherwise eligible to vote," as The New York Times reported.
However, the court allowed the challenge to the overseas votes to stand, even though overseas voters have never before been required to show ID since a state-voter ID law went into effect.
"Republicans are surgically targeting military voters from six counties and forcing them to re-prove themselves or be disenfranchised," Anderson Clayton, the chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said in a statement reported by the Times.
Finally, the court also allowed the votes of nearly 300 voters who had never lived in North Carolina—often the children of North Carolina residents who turned 18 while living abroad—to be tossed.
If the state Supreme Court's ruling stands and the military and overseas votes are rejected, Griffin has said he expects it will be enough to tip the election in his favor, WRAL Newsreported.
The two dissenting justices vehemently condemned the majority decision.
"It is no small thing to overturn the results of an election in a democracy by throwing out ballots that were legally cast consistent with all election laws in effect on the day of the election," Democratic Justice Anita Earls wrote. "Some would call it stealing the election, others might call it a bloodless coup, but by whatever name, no amount of smoke and mirrors makes it legitimate."
Justice Richard Dietz, a Republican, broke with his party and agreed that the court should not alter election laws after the fact. He also criticized his colleagues for not hearing arguments before making their decision.
"By every measure, this is the most impactful election-related court decision our state has seen in decades," Dietz wrote. "It cries out for our full review and for a decisive rejection of this sort of post hoc judicial tampering in election results."
State and national Democratic Party leaders also spoke out against the court's decision.
"Today is a dark day for our courts and our state," North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein wrote on social media. "The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that certain active duty military voters serving our nation must jump through hoops that other voters don't. All voters have a constitutional right to be treated equally under the law—it is foundational to our democracy. It's unconscionable, and this decision cannot stand."
Former Attorney General Eric Holder called the ruling "both a disgrace and legacy defining for those who put their names behind it."
"This shocking decision abandons the judiciary's most basic role, to protect the rights of the people, and sanctions an outright attempt to steal an election," he said in a statement. "The North Carolina Supreme Court's Republican majority has, for naked partisan reasons, cherrypicked whose votes count and whose do not. It is the height of political arrogance to tell military members who serve and sacrifice for our country, and other voters, that their votes and those of their family members are questionable."
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin said: "Jefferson Griffin doesn't get to pick and choose whose votes count in an election—no politician does. The men and women serving in our military will not allow their voices to be silenced by a desperate loser like Griffin."
"The nation is watching North Carolina," Martin continued. "Meanwhile, the DNC and Democrats across this country stand ready to marshal resources and manpower to ensure every vote cast in this election is counted. The people's voices will be heard, and Justice Allison Riggs will take her rightful place on the North Carolina Supreme Court."
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'No One Voted to Slaughter Hummingbirds': Trump's DOI Guts Bird Protections, Again
"Trump is breaking the law and flouting a court order by handing the fossil fuel industry and polluters this blank check to kill millions of migratory birds," one advocate said.
Apr 12, 2025
The Trump administration moved on Friday to weaken protections for migratory birds threatened by industrial activities, including oil and gas operations.
Acting Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Gregory Zerzan restored an opinion from the first Trump administration that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) "does not apply to the accidental or incidental taking or killing of migratory birds," despite the fact that this opinion was already ruled illegal in federal court.
"Trump is breaking the law and flouting a court order by handing the fossil fuel industry and polluters this blank check to kill millions of migratory birds," said Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The United States has lost billions of birds over the past 50 years, and that decline will accelerate horrifically because of this callous, anti-wildlife directive. No one voted to slaughter hummingbirds, cranes, and raptors, but this is the reality of Trump's illegal actions today."
"We're not going to succeed in addressing the crisis facing birds and other wildlife if we let this and other historic rollbacks stand."
The new directive comes as birds in the U.S. are under threat, with their numbers falling by around 30% since 1970. A number of factors are responsible for this decline, among them the climate emergency, habitat loss, falling insect populations, window strikes, and outdoor cats. However, conservationists toldThe New York Times that industrial activities would be a greater threat if not for the protection the law provides.
For example, Zuardo told the Times that if U.S. President Donald Trump's interpretation of the law had been in effect following BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010—which likely killed over 1 million birds—the company would not have been charged the around $100 million in fines that went to support bird conservation after the disaster.
Friday's directive is part of an ongoing effort over the course of both Trump administrations to weaken the MBTA so that it only targets the purposeful killing of birds, dropping enforcement against accidents such as as oil spills, drownings in uncovered oil pits, trappings in open mining pipes, and collisions with power lines or communication towers.
In 2017, lead Interior Department lawyer Daniel Jorjani issued an initial legal opinion claiming the MBTA only covered purposeful killings. This interpretation was struck down by a federal court in 2020, which argued that the act's "clear language" put it in "direct conflict" with the Trump opinion.
This didn't stop the Trump administration from issuing a final rule attempting to enshrine its interpretation of the MBTA at the end of Trump's first term, which was widely decried by bird advocates.
"We're not going to succeed in addressing the crisis facing birds and other wildlife if we let this and other historic rollbacks stand," Erik Schneider, policy manager for the National Audubon Society, said at the time.
However, months into the presidency of Joe Biden, DOI principal deputy solicitor Robert T. Anderson withdrew the initial 2017 Trump administration opinion after an appeals court, following the request of the U.S. government, dismissed the Trump administration's earlier appeal of the 2020 court decision.
"The lower court decision is consistent with the Department of the Interior's long-standing interpretation of the MBTA," Anderson wrote.
Later, the Biden administration also reversed the formal Trump-era rule weakening the MBTA.
Now, in his second term, Trump is coming for the birds again. The Biden-era withdrawal was one of 20 Biden-era opinions that the Trump DOI suspended in March. It was then officially revoked and withdrawn on Friday.
In justifying its decision, Trump's DOI cited the president's January 20 executive order "Unleashing American Energy," which calls on federal agencies to "suspend, revise, or rescind all agency actions identified as unduly burdensome," making it clear the weakening of protections is largely intended to benefit the fossil fuel and mining industries.
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Human Rights Defenders File Suit Over Trump's 'Unconstitutional' ICC Sanctions
An advocate who has worked with the ICC said the order "actively undermines international justice efforts and obstructs the path to accountability for communities facing unthinkable horrors."
Apr 12, 2025
In a federal court in Maine on Friday, two human rights advocates argued that U.S. President Donald Trump's economic and travel sanctions against International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan violates their First Amendment rights, because of Trump's stipulation that U.S. citizens cannot provide Khan with any services or material support as long as the sanctions are in place.
The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of Matthew Smith, co-founder of the human rights group Fortify Rights, and international lawyer Akila Radhakrishnan.
Trump targeted Khan with the sanctions over his issuing of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom he accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The plaintiffs argued that stopping U.S. citizens from working with Khan will bring their work investigating other atrocities to a halt.
Smith has provided the ICC with evidence of the forced deportation and genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, but he said he has been "forced to stop helping the ICC investigate horrific crimes committed against the people of Myanmar, including mass murder, torture, and human trafficking."
"This executive order doesn't just disrupt our work—it actively undermines international justice efforts and obstructs the path to accountability for communities facing unthinkable horrors," Smith said in a statement.
"The Trump administration's sanctions may discourage countries, as well as individuals and corporations, from assisting the court, making it harder to bring alleged perpetrators from Israel and other countries to trial."
Charlie Hogle, staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, said it was "unconstitutional" to block the plaintiffs and other humanitarian groups in the U.S. from "doing their human rights work" with the ICC.
Radhakrishnan, who focuses on gender-based violence in Afghanistan, said she was "bringing this suit to prevent my own government from punishing me for trying to hold the Taliban accountable for its systematic violence against women and girls from Afghanistan."
In March, Amnesty International warned that Trump's sanctions would "hinder justice for all victims for whom the [ICC] is a last resort," particularly those in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The court "relies on its member states to cooperate in its investigations and prosecutions, including by arresting individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants," said Amnesty. "The Trump administration's sanctions may discourage countries, as well as individuals and corporations, from assisting the court, making it harder to bring alleged perpetrators from Israel and other countries to trial."
"Ultimately, the sanctions will harm all of the ICC's investigations, not just those opposed by the U.S. government," said the group. "They will negatively impact the interests of all victims who look to the court for justice in all the countries where it is conducting investigations, including those investigations the U.S. ostensibly supports—for example in Ukraine, Uganda, or Darfur."
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