The House gave approval to HB 1123 on Tuesday.

McBride said his bill is intended to discourage “paid protesters,” who he said were largely responsible for blocking the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“Google ‘paid protesters,’ ” he said when pressed on the matter.

“We don’t want that kind of activity here,” McBride said.

Despite considerable talk about paid protesters at the North Dakota standoff and at demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, no one has ever actually been identified as such.

Some protesters, though, have received assistance through such things as crowdsourcing, nonprofit organizations and American Indian tribes. Some observers say measures like Biggs’ and McBride’s, while ostensibly aimed at lawbreakers, are really intended to intimidate potential protesters.

“Few, if any, organizations will be willing to organize an entirely legal protest demonstration at an industrial site that causes, or could cause, serious environmental harm if they face the possibility of being fined and economically ruined should one person attending the demonstration then decide on their own to do something illegal,” said Douglas Parr, an Oklahoma City attorney who has defended environmental protesters.