How To Bomb Oil Pipelines

[sic]

Author

Brad Johnson
April 16, 2024

PRESENTED BY TATTERED TATTIES
Simon Aron, left, and Josiah Edwards lead a chant as Sunrise Movement protesters gather Sunday near Kamala Harris’ Brentwood home. (Robert Gauthier

Blowing up pipelines, chant by chant

House Republicans have discovered the greatest terrorist threat to America: Swedish eco-socialist Andreas Malm, the author of the 2021 manifesto How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which despite its title presents arguments for and against the destruction of fossil-fuel infrastructure by the climate movement.

At a March 12 hearing with FBI Director Christopher Wray, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) denounced the book—which he called How to Bomb Oil Pipelines—misreading a propagandistic attack on the book being including in college classes from the Daily Wire. Wray did not disagree with Waltz’s depiction of this fictitious book as domestic terrorism, calling it “totally unacceptable.”

Even worse, How to Blow Up a Pipeline inspired a fictional movie of the same title, an exciting and thoughtful heist film that came out last year. The FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate responded with a bulletin sent to law-enforcement agencies across the nation claiming the film “has potential to inspire threat actors to target oil and gas infrastructure with explosives or other destructive devices.”

As reporter Jana Winter noted then, “Since the film’s release, there appear to have been zero attacks on the mass network of pipelines that carry oil and natural gas around the country, powering much of American life while also slow-cooking the planet.”

But the lack of an actual threat never stopped the FBI, and it’s certainly not stopping Republicans!

Yesterday, Oversight chair James Comer (R-Ky.), Waltz, and Oversight national security subcommittee chair Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) sent a letter to Wray equating non-violent, non-destructive direct action by “radical” climate activists with “eco-terrorism”:1

With radical environmentalists around the world commonly engaged in the destruction or attempted destruction of art and other property, blocking transit, disrupting private gatherings, and delaying energy infrastructure projects, the Committee seeks to understand the threat that environmental violent extremists also pose to the physical energy infrastructure of the United States and implications for national security. To assist the Committee’s oversight, we request a briefing with relevant FBI subject matter experts, to be held in an appropriate setting, on the threat of eco-terrorism against physical energy infrastructure in the United States as soon as possible, but no later than April 22, 2024.

Storm damage in Henrico County

Water investment firms are cashing in on the Southwest’s fossil-fueled drought, turning profits for investors like MassMutual and public pension funds as the Colorado River dries up. Maanvi Singh untangles how the secretive company Greenstone Resource Partners LLC quietly took over the water of Cibola, Arizona, and sold it to a Phoenix suburb.

The Guardian’s Helena Horton, Sarah Butler and Jack Simpson write about the the fossil-fueled collapse of the United Kingdom’s tatties and neeps:

The UK faces food shortages and price rises as extreme weather linked to climate breakdown causes low yields on farms locally and abroad. Record rainfall has meant farmers in many parts of the UK have been unable to plant crops such as potatoes, wheat and vegetables during the key spring season. Crops that have been planted are of poor quality, with some rotting in the ground. The persistent wet weather has also meant a high mortality rate for lambs on the UK’s hills, while some dairy cows have been unable to be turned out on to grass, meaning they will produce less milk.

“I wish people understood the urgent climate threat to our near-term food security,” climate scientist Paul Behrens told the reporters.

I spent a lovely afternoon scurrying around like a crazy person, trying to photograph a hummingbird. They move so fast!

On the Hill today, the House Committee on Natural Resources marks up of nine pieces of legislation. The four controversial bills are:

House appropriators discuss the U.S. Forest Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, and Department of Defense Energy, Installations, and Environment Programs budget requests. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm presents her department’s budget request to the Senate Energy Committee.

Meanwhile, Undersecretary for Energy Infrastructure David Crane and White House climate advisor John Podesta are in New York for the first day of the BloombergNEF energy investors summit. Sponsored by Chevron!

Hearings on the Hill:

Climate Action Today:

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected], @climatebrad on Threads, and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky

1  In reality, attacks on energy infrastructure are on the rise from far-right extremists. Strange how the Republicans are not interested in investigating neo-Nazis and Boogaloos shooting up the power grid.

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