FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5:00 a.m. CT, August 22, 2017
Contact: Ed Fallon at (515) 238-6404 or [email protected]
BOLD IOWA CITED IN OIL COMPANY’S SWEEPING LAWSUIT
Allegations of “racketeering” absurd, claims Bold Iowa’s leader
Des Moines, IA — In response to the sweeping, 187-page lawsuit by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) against Greenpeace and numerous other NGOs, Bold Iowa’s director, Ed Fallon, labeled it “a corporate witch hunt” and “a desperate, insidious effort to silence public opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) and other fossil-fuel expansion projects.”
“Clearly, our movement has had quite an impact on ETPs bottom line,” said Ed Fallon, whose organization, Bold Iowa, is mentioned frequently throughout ETP’s lawsuit. ETP claims that the campaign to stop DAPL has cost it perhaps $300 million (Item 364). Item 24 of the suit says, “The damage to Plaintiffs’ relationships with the capital markets has been substantial, impairing access to financing and increasing their cost of capital and ability to fund future projects at economical rates.”
“It’s encouraging to know that our efforts had a big impact,” continued Fallon. “At the same time, any American who values freedom of speech and the right to assemble should find it chilling that a huge corporation with seemingly bottomless pockets can use its clout to try to silence dissent through the courts.”
Three of Fallon’s blogs from his visit to Standing Rock in November and December of 2016 are also referenced (page 154), and Bold Iowa’s Bold Action Teams are cited in Item 316 of the lawsuit: “Bold Iowa organized and trained ‘Bold Action Teams’ (‘BAT’) which consisted of teams of five people who mobilize repeatedly to prevent construction until the point that the BATs were threatened with arrests.”
“For me, a lawsuit from ETP seems to have become an annual event,” concluded Fallon. Last August, ETP sued Bold Iowa and Iowa CCI, and Fallon and CCI’s Adam Mason specifically, to try to stop the two organizations from organizing peaceful protests and nonviolent civil disobedience. That lawsuit was dismissed by district court in Polk County, Iowa.
Bold Iowa was formerly part of the national Bold Alliance and is now an independent non-profit organization that addresses the climate crisis, opposes the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, promotes renewable energy and works to build a broad, urban/rural coalition of Iowans concerned about climate, land, water, property rights and greater accountability and integrity in politics. The organization’s new website is under construction and will be available in the near future.
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