Anti-fossil-fuel activist Tim DeChristopher was released from prison yesterday. On July 26, 2011 he was given a 2-year sentence for derailing a Bush Administration oil auction — JR.

By Laural Whitney via DeSmogBlog

Tim DeChristopher created quite a ripple in the activist community when he tried to buy millions of dollars of land in December of 2008 in order to stop the oil and gas industry from snatching it up at an illegitimate auction put on by the outgoing Bush administration. While the incoming Obama administration cancelled the auction, Tim was caught in the fallout, while the rest of the auctioneers presumably roam free.

He was slapped with two federal felony charges – one for making false statements and violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act.

Tim’s trial was pushed back 6 times over two years and was fraught with maddening plot twists. The judge refused to let Tim use the Necessity Defense or let the jury know crucial facts, including that the auction was illegal. Tim was also prohibited from testifying on how he acted on moral convictions relating to climate change.

His prison term was no less eventful. During March of last year, Tim was thrown in isolated confinement for two and a half weeks after writing correspondence that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) deemed potentially harmful because it contained the word “threat.” It turned out he was only “threatening” to return a potential legal fund donation from a company whose ethics weren’t aligned with his own.

Rumors went around that an unnamed Congressman had put in the order, but investigations never figured out if it was true.

Tim was eventually returned to the general population after a massive effort by supporters demanded the prison to put him back. Some speculated the move was a tactic by the BOP to further restrict his communication with the outside world.

It’s not the first (nor the last) time an activist has been censured for political speech. Just a few weeks ago, former ELF participant, Daniel McGowan, was taken back into custody after penning a Huffington Post article about documents shedding light on his incarceration in a Communication Management Unit (CMU).

The government attempting to suppress individuals’ freedom of speech is often a constant thread when activists get put on trial and has been especially prevalent during Tim’s trial, sentencing, and time in prison.

Legal documents from Tim’s sentencing indicate that the main reason for Tim receiving jail time was not necessarily because his crime was heinous, but rather because of what he said after his conviction. The government’s prosecutors proposed 7 years incarceration in order to “be sure, a federal prison term here will deter others from entering a path of criminal behavior.”

Judge Dee Benson, the Utah judge presiding over the case, stated during the sentencing hearing that Tim may not have received any time if he hadn’t roused the crowd on the steps of the courthouse after being issued a guilty verdict. Or if he hadn’t further continued to address audiences around the country afterward about total system change, overthrowing the fossil fuel industry, and creating an economy that works better for everyone instead of protecting the interests of a small percentage of ultra wealthy.
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Two climate activists perched in trees next to a strip mine atop Coal River Mountain in West Virginia have shut down operations for nearly two weeks now. Sunday marked the 12th day that protesters Becks Kolins and Catherine-Ann MacDougal have been camping in trees 80 feet above the ground on the Bee Tree permit, Alpha Natural Resources’ only active strip mining permit on Coal River Mountain. The tree sit is the longest one in West Virginia history, according to the RAMPS campaign, and “has successfully halted blasting on portions of the site, aside from a small blast last Friday afternoon.” Kolins and MacDougal are part of a nationwide movement of people willing to engage in civil disobedience to stop the immoral destruction of their future by the fossil fuel industry, the campaign — an affiliate of Peaceful Uprising — says:

The sitters expressed solidarity with Tim DeChristopher, a West Virginia native who was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison for peacefully disrupting an illegitimate oil and gas auction and saving tens of thousands of acres of public land from oil and gas exploitation.Prior to his sentencing, DeChristopher expressed his strong support for the tree sitters. From the trees, Becks wrote, “Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years. Please support him and all those who suffer to bring justice to us all.”

“Until this past Wednesday, trucks were still hauling coal that had previously been extracted and stockpiled; now, even this work has ceased,” the campaign reports. Local resident Junior Walk was arrested for supporting the tree sitters along with Elias Schewel on the first day of the protest. Both were released on bail that evening.

Citizen activism may be the only protection the mountains have against the mountaintop removal mining, which is giving local communities cancer and birth defects. West Virginia’s politicians are working with Tea Party Republicans to overturn Environmental Protection Agency efforts to enforce Clean Water Act rules against the pollution caused by blowing up mountains.

On Aug. 20, several weeks of protest will begin in front of the White House to challenge President Obama to prevent the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“We thank the multitude of people across the country that have expressed their unwavering support for the tree sitters,” the RAMPS campaign wrote in an email update on Saturday. “Please be assured that these words of encouragement are being passed on to the young people in the trees, and will be ever more necessary with each passing day they spend sitting and sweating in the muggy West Virginia heat.”

The RAMPS campaign, reporting on the tree sit on Twitter at @RAMPSWV, is seeking contributions and comments that oppose the renewal of the Bee Tree mining permit, acquired by Alpha when they took over Massey Energy.

In the waning days of the Bush presidency, an auction of 130,000 acres of pristine Utah lands near national parks was organized by the Bureau of Land Management as a last-minute gift to the oil and gas industry. The auction was disrupted by climate activist Tim DeChristopher, then a 27-year-old economics student, who successfully bid for $1.7 million in parcels. Although the Bush leasing plan was found in court to be flawed and has been withdrawn, today DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in federal prison, fined $10,000 for his act of civil disobedience, and taken immediately into custody.

At the sentencing, DeChristopher — a native of West Virginia, where coal companies rule supreme — explained why he was willing to take on the government and the fossil fuel industry, risking a prison sentence that could have been as long as ten years:

I actually have great respect for the rule of law, because I see what happens when it doesn’t exist, as is the case with the fossil fuel industry.

The federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Huber, sought a stiff sentence against DeChristopher “‘to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct’ by others,” because “the rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.”

“The people who are committed to fighting for a livable future will not be discouraged or intimidated by anything that happens here today,” DeChristopher responded in his 35-minute address. “And neither will I.”

In March, Tim DeChristopher was convicted on two felony counts for disrupting an oil lease auction at the end of the Bush administration. Today, “barring any further delays, he will face a sentence of up to 10 years behind bars — even though Obama Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cancelled the bids before DeChristopher was even charged.”

President Obama’s Department of Justice has relentlessly pursued putting DeChristopher into prison. In contrast, no charges have been brought up against BP or Massey Energy for their deadly catastrophes in April 2010, which collectively killed 40 Americans, in addition to the environmental damage done. Nor have any charges been brought against the financial companies which caused a global economic meltdown through their unlimited greed. Public Citizen responds:

While the actions of major corporations like Massey Energy and BP have led to vast environmental damages, safety hazards and even deaths, these companies never seem to get the punishment they deserve. When compared to the leniency afforded corporate polluters, his potential sentence seems unreasonably severe.

Noting that DeChristopher acted because of the global warming pollution the oil lease sale would unleash, Bill McKibben warns that the federal government’s prosecutorial zeal is creating a martyr:

The last year was the warmest in human history. Just last week new studies showed that with that heat came the most extreme weather ever measured, a spate of floods and droughts biblical in scope and power. DeChristopher is proving prophetic, and sticking prophets in jail does not rob them of their power.

McKibben is organizing weeks of climate civil disobedience aimed at the president, beginning Aug. 20.