"Utah, Georgia and Tennessee are the latest states to pass legislation designed to counter demonstrations like those against the Dakota Access pipeline."

"In just the past month, lawmakers in Utah, Georgia and Tennessee have passed legislation granting police broad new authority to charge anyone who interferes with or disrupts the operations of power plants and pipelines with felonies carrying years in prison.

Over the past five years, nearly two dozen states have enacted similar bills, all following the format of a model bill right-wing operatives working with fossil fuel lobbyists designed to thwart future climate protests like those against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Early on, proponents were explicit about targeting environmentalists and community activists, pushing measures that threatened to bankrupt small-town Ohio churches whose parishioners took part in demonstrations with legal fines or throw a Louisiana grandmother in prison for three years for stepping on a petrochemical company’s land to visit the mass grave containing her enslaved ancestors. It obviously proved controversial: The Buckeye State passed its law, but the governor vetoed the Bayou State bill."

Alexander C. Kaufman reports for HuffPost April 19, 2023. [2]