Enbridge has paid American police millions to protect their pipeline

Jordan When protesters show up at an oil and gas pipeline, so do the police. Whatever side of the pipeline argument you’re on, that’s just a fact. But who calls those police, what they do when they show up, and who is or isn’t harmed or removed by them, that’s what matters. Or at least that’s what I would have thought. It honestly never occurred to me to wonder who pays for the police that do that work. I assumed that, like it or not, I did. And so did you as part of our taxes. It turns out that’s not always the case. Oil and gas companies are often asked to reimburse police for expenses incurred in protecting their property, and they make those payments. And while one might raise some questions about that, there is a Canadian company that has taken it even further. This story comes from one Canadian company and one US based pipeline project, but it has implications for the entire environmental movement and beyond. As protests escalate as the climate crisis worsens, whose side will the police be on?

I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is the Big Story. Hilary Beaumont is a freelance investigative journalist. She covers all sorts of issues, especially pertaining to the environment and climate. She wrote about this story in The Guardian . Hey, Hilary.

Hilary Hey, Jordan, how are you doing?

Jordan I’m doing all right. I’m a little bit disturbed from your reporting, but other than that, I’m doing great. Tell me first, because I don’t think a lot of people will have a baseline here. What is the “Line 3” pipeline and what’s being done to it right now?

Hilary So the Line 3 pipeline is an existing pipeline that runs from Alberta through the Prairies, kind of clips North Dakota, and then dips down through Minnesota to Lake Superior. And what’s happening is that it was originally built in the 1960s, and there were all of these dangerous incidents, like spills and leaks and an explosion that killed two Enbridge workers. And so the company decided they’re going to reduce the capacity of the pipeline to pump half as much oil. But then they wanted to increase the capacity again and they wanted to replace it. So Minnesota was like, okay, you’re good to replace this pipeline. And Enbridge has been building a new replacement pipeline to replace the old one. And since they’ve been constructing this, there have been protests all along the pipeline route this past year.

Jordan Protests around pipelines are not unusual in and of themselves. What do companies like Enbridge typically do when they’re doing work on a pipeline, and the protests are sort of constant or semi constant?

Hilary Yeah. So when a company anticipates that there’s going to be, this project is really controversial, then often what they’ll do is they’ll hire private security to police the pipeline route to basically secure the construction sites, and the pump stations. And police will also respond to protest sites. So, for example, in North Dakota, when the company building the Dakota Access pipeline, they had hired private security. And there were also militarized police who cracked down on the encampments. And then after the protests were over, the pipeline company sent North Dakota $15 million to pay for the policing bills.

Jordan What’s different in this case?

Hilary What’s different is how the financial arrangement is set up. So this is something that we’ve never actually seen before. So what happened was Minnesota is next door to North Dakota. And they saw all of the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. They saw how violent the police response was. They saw how crazy the protests were. And they were like, we don’t want that to happen here. They didn’t want rural police to have to pay for responding to protests in Minnesota. So as a condition of approving the Line 3 pipeline permits, they asked Enbridge to set up a public safety escrow fund to reimburse police.

So just to be clear, the account is not just for police. It is also for like, for example, Minnesota regulators acknowledged that pipeline construction would increase human trafficking. So they also allowed nonprofit groups and, like, women’s shelters to reimburse certain expenses from human trafficking to this account. But overall, the account has mostly been used to reimburse police. So Enbridge has paid police $2.4 million through this account.

Jordan So can you explain how that arrangement works, like, in practice and why it’s so different from having Enbridge pay the police back later?

Hilary Beaumont Yeah. Exactly. So it’s really simple. Basically, Enbridge puts money into this account, and then as police are responding to the protest, they send their receipts into an independent account manager, and the independent manager checks those receipts, checks to make sure they follow the rules of the account, and then he reimburses them.

So, for example, police can’t reimburse rubber bullets, but they can reimburse personal protective equipment. So it’s similar to when you go on a work trip and your employer reimburses you for your expenses on that trip. Except in this case, it’s a Canadian company that is reimbursing American police for protecting their pipeline.

Jordan How much power over the police does that technically give Enbridge? And how much does it give Enbridge, in a less technical sense, from a more, I guess, incentive based point of view?

Hilary Yeah. I think that when you read through these emails, it’s clear that police know in advance that they’re going to be reimbursed by this Endbridge account. So you’ll see, like, one Sheriff asking another county for officers to respond to a protest, and they’ll say in the email like, don’t worry, you won’t have to pay for this. You can reimburse it. So the question is, is this incentivizing police to respond to protests? Would they otherwise respond to protests in the same way if they had to pay for it?

And I think that there’s a very clear financial relationship here. Like this does incentivize police, ultimately to, in some ways, like protect the pipeline over protecting public safety. You can make that argument because the money puts police in a conflict of interest. They’re supposed to protect and serve the people in the state of Minnesota. But if this money is coming to you, are you going to enforce the law that the pipeline company wants you to enforce, or are you going to enforce the law that protesters want you to enforce? Are you going to enforce treaty rights or are you going to enforce trespassing laws?

And so especially when you’ve got and Bridge, a company, like calling and sending letters to police, asking them to enforce the law and come arrest protesters. And police are writing in emails that it’s their job that day to protect the pipeline and construction workers. You can see that police are in some ways, like responding more to the pipeline company than they are to protecting protesters. And so I had asked Tara Houska, who is with Giniw Collective, a frontline Indigenous group, about this fund. And she said that Minnesota police are beholden to a foreign company, and it’s a violation of the public trust.

Jordan Okay. That was going to be my next question is, where does the actual law stand on this? Is this legal? Do we know?

Hilary Yeah, it’s totally legal at the moment. The state asked Enbridge to do this, and it was all public. It was transparent. Like people knew this from the beginning that this was going to be the case. And yeah, you’ve got the state basically Sanctioning Enbridge paying police.

Jordan Give me some examples if you can, because I know you’ve got a ton of documents on this, and you’ve gone through all of them, of some real world examples of what Enbridge asked for, what police did, how much money they got, et cetera, et cetera.

Hilary For sure. So, yeah, I put in a public records request and I got all these receipts back. And it was very interesting going through these receipts. One example was back in July, Enbridge started drilling under a river. And protesters had kind of, like gathered near this fenced off drill site. And the local Sheriff’s office anticipated that protesters were probably going to do something around the drill site. So he called for backup from other counties. And in one email, police said they were assigned to protect construction workers and equipment from activists and protesters.

And so one day, protesters started running toward the fence, and they leaned ladders up against the fence. And they started kind of climbing over the fence. And police were like, you’re under arrest. But they kept climbing over the fence. And so police fired at protesters with pepper spray and rubber bullets that left bloody welts on people’s skin. And they arrested people. And then you’re wondering, okay, who ultimately paid for this? So you look at the receipts and those police agencies were reimbursed by the Enbridge fund.

So the Wright County Sheriff’s Office, for example, was reimbursed almost $27,000 in meals, wages and benefits. So, for example, one officer had a spicy Italian sub that was paid for by Enbridge and also a Taco and burrito and a soda. And that was all paid for by Enbridge. In another case, Grand Rapids police followed vehicles that they had suspected had protesters in them. They followed them around all day. There’s like a very detailed log of like they turn right here and follow this Jeep. At one point, an officer followed a Jeep into a parking lot and the people inside started filming him and asking why he was following them. And I think he kept following them after that, too. And the police wages that day were $4,000 and Enbridge reimbursed those wages, for police surveilling protesters.

Jordan Wow.

Hilary Yeah.

Jordan And what’s Enbridge’s perspective on this? Have they said anything?

Hilary Yeah. So I think it is really important to include their perspective on things because they see it really differently. So as I said earlier, there is an independent manager for the Escrow account who was appointed by the regulator. Enbridge says it doesn’t manage the account and setting up the account was actually a precondition of obtaining their permits to build the pipeline. So the company is saying that they also have no desire to quash peaceful protests in Minnesota, and they don’t believe that the money provides any sort of incentive for police to arrest people.

So from their perspective, they believe police weren’t paid for arresting or surveilling protesters or protecting the pipeline. They also said that they don’t direct police and that police decide when protesters are breaking the law or putting themselves or others in danger. And I also have found documents that showed that Enbridge calls police and send letters when it wants them to enforce trespassing laws. But the company said that there were times when there was sensitive equipment at risk and that could have actually put protesters and workers in danger. So they felt that they needed to call police at those times. They also said they received a bomb threat. So that was why they were in touch with police is what the company says.

Jordan How do the police feel about this arrangement? I don’t want to ask you to speak for all of them, but have you talked to any of them about it? How do they justify it?

Hilary So I sent questions to every police agency that I had mentioned in the story, and I didn’t hear back from most of them. But I did hear back from Cass County Sheriff Tom Burch. And I had seen in the documents that Cass County had initiated what it called Proactive safety patrols around the pipeline route. And in an email, Tom Burch said that he had assigned a supervisor to meet several times daily with Enbridge staff to discuss project work areas, calls for service and intelligence gathering. And ultimately, the Sheriff reimbursed about $850,000 to the Enbridge account for these Proactive safety patrols.

So I asked him about that, and I was like, Would you have initiated these patrols if Enbridge wasn’t paying for it? And he said, yes, he would have started these patrols regardless. And his view is that he doesn’t work for Enbridge is what he said. And he said his office responds appropriately to the public safety needs of his community. So that’s really how police see themselves. In this case, they think that they are still operating independently, regardless of the financial arrangement.

Jordan Who’s fighting this? Is there any opposition to it in government?

Hilary It’s weird to think back on this when this idea was initially approved, because I don’t think a lot of people thought that this was going to end up this way. So, many of the officials who approved the pipeline permits and also approved this account, they just really thought that this was the best way to make sure rural counties didn’t have to pay for any protests or violence associated with the pipeline. But more recently, both Minnesota representatives and members of Congress like Ilhan Omar, AOC, members of “The Squad”, have written a letter to President Biden about this pipeline and about the Enbridge financial relationship with police, and they’re really not happy about it. They’re pushing back against it.

Jordan How important could whatever happens in this state turn out to be?

Hilary So I think this does set a really important precedent or example because it raises the possibility that when there are these big, controversial construction projects, it doesn’t have to be a pipeline, it could be a mine, it could be anything. Other States or even provinces in Canada, for example, could copy this idea. Elected representatives, your pipeline regulators could see this idea and be like, oh, you could just get the company to pay for this. And they could set up a similar arrangement.

Jordan When you talk to people who look into the ethics of police behavior, what do they have to say about this arrangement?

Hilary I mean, I think that a lot of people who are in opposition to this financial relationship see it as a violation of the public trust. They see it as incentivizing police. And they’re really concerned that this could be a standard going forward, because think about it, we’re in the middle of a climate crisis, and this massive Canadian company was able to pay police in a different country, in Minnesota, to protect its workers, its contractors and its pipeline project. And so if we are in this climate crisis and we’re concerned about the expansion of infrastructure to move more oil, then what does it mean if a company can just push through a pipeline in this way? What does it mean, ultimately, if we’re really concerned about lowering emissions, but a company can in some ways, incentivize police to protect their interests? I think these are some of the questions that people are asking now that they see this happening.

Jordan When you asked for these documents, what were you expecting to find? And how did the reality of it differ?

Hilary Just to be super clear, there was nothing secret about the fact that this fund existed. And the total number that had been reimbursed by police was kind of like ticking up as the protests happened over the summer. And I was seeing how the protests were playing out on the ground, was seeing like police arresting people using pepper spray, using rubber bullets. And I was like, okay, I know that this fund exists. I wonder what exactly is being reimbursed. And so I expected to find receipts for equipment, that kind of stuff. But when I actually saw the receipts, I was like, oh, they’re reimbursing them, actually, for wages, like, for real police wages. For their meals. I was surprised to see their meals being reimbursed like cheeseburgers were being reimbursed to this fund and surveillance as well. I knew that police had been surveilling water protectors, but I didn’t know that they were being reimbursed for it. So it was, like, a bit surprising to see that. And very interesting going through these documents, to say the least.

Jordan And what happens now?

Hilary Well, now pipeline construction is over. Enbridge just completed Line 3 construction. There are still legal challenges to this pipeline project, trying to overturn the permits and trying to stop the flow of oil. Oil is now flowing through this pipeline. And there’s also one lawyer that I spoke to who is planning to challenge this financial relationship set up by the state. And she’s very interested in doing that because she wants to stop other States from being able to copy this funding model. So I’m not sure exactly what the particulars are of her legal approach. I don’t know when she’s going to file, but that will be really interesting to watch.

Jordan Hilary, thanks so much for your work on this, and thanks for explaining it to us.

Hilary Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Jordan Hilary Beaumont, investigative reporter writing for The Guardian . That was The Big Story, for more from us, including past appearances by Hilary, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Talk to us via email, thebigstorypodcast@rci.rogers.com [click here!]. And of course, we are in all podcast players, at least I think so. And we’re on smart speakers, you’ve got to ask for us. Ask your smart speaker to “play the The Big Story Podcast”.

Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow. Back to top of page