Pipeline politics, like fractivism, is a movement of outsiders, out-of-staters and well-funded special interests having little to do with local issues.

Six people were arrested last month in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for blocking construction of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline, four were residents of New York and another was from Philadelphia. Only one of the protesters was “a local.” This locals-to-carpetbaggers ratio is typical of the pipeline protests across the country. Very often, the overwhelming majority of those arrested for illegally protesting pipeline construction don’t live anywhere near the pipelines.

More than 94% of the nearly 600 activists arrested at the Dakota Access pipeline last year (many for instigating violent clashes with police), were from out of state. And, nearly a third of them had prior criminal records.

But, rather than be embarrassed by their role as out-of-state instigators meddling in other people’s business, these professional activists actually brag about it.

Emma Yip, a California activist who testified at a permit hearing for the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana last January, boasted she was instrumental in costing North Dakota taxpayers millions of dollars by recruiting hundreds of out-of-state activists to disrupt the Dakota Access pipeline. She then threatened to do the same to the taxpayers of Louisiana.

http://naturalgasnow.org/unfortunately-pipeline-politics-anything-l...