PIPES Act of 2020 — Federal Pipeline Penalties and the Protest Criminalization Trend

• Law: Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2020
• Signed by: President Donald Trump, December 27, 2020
• Federal statute behind it: 49 U.S.C. § 60123 — intentional damage to interstate pipelines: up to 20 years in federal prison, already law before the PIPES Act

You can be charged with a federal felony carrying up to 20 years in prison for attaching a banner to a pipeline valve. That charge exists right now, in existing federal law, before the PIPES Act. The PIPES Act expanded PHMSA's regulatory authority and increased penalties on pipeline operators — officially a safety bill. But it exists inside a decade-long campaign by the pipeline industry to weaponize federal and state law against protesters and indigenous rights activists who have peacefully opposed fossil fuel infrastructure. Over 300 anti-protest bills in 45 states since 2017. Twenty-one states passed them. Most targeted pipeline and energy infrastructure specifically. The PIPES Act is one piece of a coordinated legal siege on the right to protest the extraction economy.

How It Passed

The PIPES Act reauthorized and expanded the authority of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) — the federal agency responsible for pipeline safety regulations. The bill was framed as a safety and oversight measure: extending agency authority, increasing record-keeping requirements, expanding inspection protocols, and raising penalties on pipeline companies for safety violations.

This framing is accurate as far as it goes. The PIPES Act does contain genuine pipeline safety provisions. The problem is the context in which it was enacted and the broader use of pipeline penalty law that it reinforces.

Existing federal law — 49 U.S.C. § 60123 — already makes it a federal felony to "willfully and knowingly" damage or destroy an interstate pipeline. The maximum sentence is 20 years in federal prison. This statute was passed years before Standing Rock, before the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, before the explosion of environmental and indigenous activism against pipeline expansion. It is broad. It is aggressively enforced. And its scope has been extended by prosecutors to cover conduct that most people would recognize as protest, not sabotage.

The pipeline industry and its congressional allies have spent years pushing to expand the definitions of "attacks on infrastructure" at both the federal and state level, using safety legislation as a vehicle. The PIPES Act reauthorization was part of that legislative cycle.

What It Does To You

The Existing 20-Year Federal Felony

Before discussing what the PIPES Act adds, the existing exposure must be clear. Under 49 U.S.C. § 60123, any person who "willfully and knowingly" damages, destroys, or "impairs" the operation of an interstate pipeline faces up to 20 years in federal prison. The word "impairs" is not defined narrowly. Federal prosecutors have used this statute to pursue protesters whose conduct involved:

• Chaining themselves to pipeline equipment
• Turning or attempting to turn pipeline valves
• Trespassing on pipeline easements
• Attaching physical protest materials to pipeline infrastructure

These are not hypothetical applications. Environmental lawyers have documented cases in which pipeline protesters faced federal felony indictments for conduct that stopped short of any actual damage to the physical pipeline. The "impairs operation" language creates enormous prosecutorial discretion.

The PIPES Act's Enforcement Expansion

The PIPES Act increased penalties on pipeline operators for safety violations and expanded PHMSA's inspection and enforcement authority. It also expanded the agency's regulatory footprint — more rules, more compliance requirements, larger potential fines for operators who violate them.

What this does, from a protest and civil society perspective, is increase the legal surface area around pipeline operations. More regulatory requirements mean more potential violations that could theoretically be implicated by protest activity near or on pipeline infrastructure. Industry lobbyists have repeatedly pushed to expand the definition of what constitutes an "attack" on pipeline infrastructure in safety legislation — each reauthorization is another opportunity to widen the legal net.

The State Law Ecosystem

The PIPES Act does not exist in isolation. It is one component of a nationwide legislative campaign documented by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL):

• More than 300 anti-protest bills were introduced in 45 states since 2017
• At least 21 states passed versions of these bills into law
• The majority specifically target activity near "critical infrastructure" — defined to include pipelines, refineries, power plants, and related facilities
• Penalties in state laws range from misdemeanor enhancements to felony charges for trespass near pipeline infrastructure
• Several states created enhanced penalties for organizations that "conspire" or "coordinate" protest near infrastructure — targeting environmental advocacy organizations with conspiracy charges for supporting their members' protest activity

See also: Oklahoma HB 1123, Louisiana HB 727, North Dakota SB 2044, and State Critical Infrastructure Laws Overview.

The Industry Lobbying Record

The American Petroleum Institute, pipeline companies, and their trade associations have lobbied Congress explicitly for expanded protest-suppression provisions in pipeline safety legislation. Jacobin and other investigative outlets documented industry lobbying documents seeking:

• Expanded definitions of "attacks" on pipeline infrastructure to include protest activity
• Federal conspiracy charges for organizations that support protesters
• Private rights of action allowing pipeline companies to sue protest organizations for economic damages
• Removal of federal court jurisdiction for challenges to pipeline permits under emergency conditions

Not all of these proposals made it into enacted law. But the lobbying record is documented and the legislative trajectory is consistent: each pipeline safety reauthorization is an opportunity to push the legal perimeter further against dissent.

Rights It Strips

First Amendment — The Right to Protest Is Felony Territory

The combination of the existing 49 U.S.C. § 60123 federal felony statute, state critical infrastructure laws, and the expanding regulatory framework of the PIPES Act creates a legal environment in which peaceful protest near pipeline infrastructure carries catastrophic legal risk.

The First Amendment protects peaceful protest, assembly, and civil disobedience. Federal courts have consistently held that even trespass in the course of protest — when peaceful and nonviolent — is at most a misdemeanor. The pipeline protest criminalization infrastructure bypasses this protection by categorizing protest activity as attacks on critical infrastructure, converting misdemeanor trespass into felony interference with federal facilities.

The chilling effect is the point. You do not need to prosecute thousands of protesters for 20-year federal felonies. You need to indict a few, let the others watch the legal exposure, and most people will stay home. That is how you suppress a protest movement without passing a law that says "protest is illegal."

Fourth Amendment — Surveillance of Protest Groups

Federal law enforcement — FBI, DHS, TSA — has documented surveillance programs targeting environmental and indigenous rights organizations that have protested pipeline construction. FOIA requests have revealed fusion center reports treating environmental groups as potential domestic terrorism threats, intelligence sharing between federal agencies and pipeline companies about planned protest activities, and law enforcement coordinating with industry before and during protests.

This surveillance infrastructure is built on the legal theory that pipeline protesters are potential threats to critical infrastructure. The PIPES Act and the broader federal pipeline penalty framework provide the legal predicate for that characterization.

Due Process — Crushing Prosecutorial Leverage

A 20-year federal felony creates enormous leverage in plea negotiations. Even protesters who are confident they committed no crime will face the choice between accepting a plea agreement — guaranteed time, guaranteed fines, certain costs — and going to trial on a federal felony charge with a 20-year maximum. The federal conviction rate at trial exceeds 90%. Most defendants take the plea. The 20-year maximum makes any plea offer look reasonable.

This is how felony charges suppress protest without requiring conviction: the threat of prosecution, the cost of defense, and the plea arithmetic do the work. The cases that go to trial are the ones that get documented. The hundreds of cases where protesters accepted misdemeanor pleas to avoid felony exposure are not in the public record.

Documented Harms

Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline

The pipeline protest criminalization infrastructure was built during and after Standing Rock (2016–2017). The Dakota Access Pipeline protests brought thousands of water protectors and environmental activists to North Dakota. Law enforcement response included:

• More than 750 arrests during the months-long protest
• Use of water cannons in freezing temperatures
• Rubber bullets, tear gas, and concussion grenades against unarmed protesters
• Federal felony charges against protest leaders
• North Dakota subsequently passing one of the most aggressive state critical infrastructure laws in the country — SB 2044 — directly in response to Standing Rock

Standing Rock was the laboratory. The legislative response was to ensure that what happened there could not happen again — not by addressing indigenous land rights, but by making the legal consequences of protest near pipelines severe enough to deter future organizing.

Valve Turner Prosecutions

In October 2016, environmental activists in four states coordinated to close emergency shut-off valves on pipelines carrying Canadian tar sands oil. The valves were designed exactly for this purpose — safely shutting down pipeline flow in emergencies. The activists argued they were acting on emergency necessity grounds to prevent greater climate harm.

Federal and state prosecutors charged the "valve turners" with felonies. In Washington State, Michael Foster faced felony charges including criminal sabotage. The emergency necessity defense — that the defendants acted to prevent a greater harm — was largely barred from evidence at trial. The cases were prosecuted as infrastructure attacks.

ICNL Documentation: 300+ Anti-Protest Bills

The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law tracks anti-protest legislation in real time. Their documentation is public and searchable. Over 300 bills targeting critical infrastructure protest have been introduced since 2017. The bills use similar template language — suggesting coordinated drafting by industry groups — and most specifically exempt law enforcement from liability while creating new felony and conspiracy charges for protesters and their supporting organizations.

Fusion Centers: Law Enforcement Serving Industry

FOIA requests obtained by the ACLU, Greenpeace, and other organizations have revealed that state fusion centers — federally funded intelligence-sharing hubs — were sharing environmental group protest plans directly with pipeline companies, including information about specific individuals, planned routes, and organizational leadership. Law enforcement was functioning as an intelligence service for private infrastructure interests.

Who Pushed This

Pipeline Industry and API

The American Petroleum Institute and pipeline operators including Enbridge, Energy Transfer Partners, and TC Energy have lobbied for expanded federal pipeline security authorities and protest-suppression provisions in safety legislation. They have contributed to the drafting of model state critical infrastructure bills distributed to state legislatures through industry-aligned networks.

Congressional Sponsors

The PIPES Act had bipartisan support. Senate Commerce Committee and House Transportation Committee leadership from both parties supported reauthorization as a routine safety measure. The lack of controversy reflects the bill's safety framing — members were not voting on protest criminalization; they were voting to reauthorize PHMSA.

State Legislative Coordination

The Center for Media and Democracy's CMD has documented that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) distributed model critical infrastructure protection legislation to state legislators — legislation that was nearly verbatim to bills passed in Oklahoma, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Texas.

Key Votes

The PIPES Act of 2020 passed as part of year-end legislative packages in December 2020. It was signed on December 27, 2020, along with other government funding and authorization legislation. Standalone vote records are limited because of the end-of-session legislative bundling.

The broader legislative pattern matters more than the PIPES Act vote specifically: the pipeline protest criminalization regime was built through a combination of existing federal statute (49 U.S.C. § 60123), PIPES Act reauthorizations, and the state-level critical infrastructure law wave documented separately. Each piece reinforces the others.

Members who have voted YES on every pipeline safety reauthorization are on record supporting the federal legal framework that enables 20-year felony exposure for protest activity. That record is searchable.

Why This Matters for We The Citizens

The pipeline criminalization story is the clearest example in the bad laws catalog of how legal infrastructure gets built incrementally to suppress dissent without ever passing a law that says "protest is illegal."

No one voted for a law that said environmental protesters should face 20-year federal felonies. They voted for pipeline safety. They voted for critical infrastructure protection. They voted for anti-sabotage statutes. Each vote, in isolation, looked reasonable. The cumulative effect is a legal environment where indigenous water protectors and climate activists face felony exposure for standing near a pipeline.

Three hundred bills in 45 states in seven years is not coincidence. It is a coordinated campaign. The federal pipeline safety legislation — including the PIPES Act — is the federal anchor for that state-level campaign. Industry groups drafted template language. Legislative networks distributed it. Legislators passed it. Federal prosecutors invoked federal statute when the state charges needed a backup.

The politicians who voted for this framework when it was called "pipeline safety" are on record. The activists facing felony charges are in court records. The lobbying documents are in FOIA responses. Connect the dots.

See also: Bad Laws Overview