Panel at the Environmental Grantmaking Association Conference: Latest Trends in the Crackdown on Democracy Led by Fossil Fuel Companies

As the environmental movement has built power and used innovative tactics including protest and direct action to advance environmental justice, fossil fuel companies have worked with their allies in the legislature to crack down on protest and silence community members’ voices in what happens to the land and water in their communities. These assaults on protest rights continue to evolve, and it is important that grantmakers understand the latest threats to our grantees. The panel will examine the myriad of ways that fossil fuel companies have worked with lawmakers to crack down on dissent from reclassifying pipelines to critical infrastructure and increasing penalties for protesting at pipeline sites, to funding local police departments along the construction route of a pipeline, to new legislation that would prohibit any state employee or contractor from boycotting fossil fuel companies. The event will feature speakers including Suhad Babaa, Executive Director of Just Vision; Julia Reticker-Flynn, Program Officer at the Piper Fund; and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. This event is open to participants of the conference only.