The bullying continues.

You'd think the oil and gas industry would be satisfied, now that it has pushed all of its measly opposition aside, crisscrossed Ohio with pipelines and fracked up the countryside with its well pads.

But no, there are still citizens to be muzzled.

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Senate Bill 33 has been oozing its way around the Statehouse for months. It passed the Senate in May and now resides in the House Public Utilities Committee. It aims to bolster laws already on the books by tailoring them to specifically address "critical infrastructure facilities" and to target interlopers at those facilities with enhanced penalties.

Critical infrastructure, according to the bill, includes everything from water plants to telecommunications towers. But it is the gas and oil industry that is driving legislation like SB 33 across the U.S. Since high-profile protests of the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline in 2016, the industry's full-court press is working; nine states have increased criminal penalties by drafting legislation very much like SB 33.

If SB 33 were to become law, it would be a first-degree misdemeanor to "knowingly enter or remain on a critical infrastructure facility," a crime that is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. If violators "knowingly destroy or improperly tamper with a critical infrastructure facility," they would face a third-degree felony punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine. That's the same punishment faced by a felon caught carrying a gun.

And in what would have the most chilling effect on free speech if SB 33 becomes law, organizations that are deemed "complicit" with any acts of destruction or tampering could face a fine of as much as $100,000. That might be chump change to a natural-gas pipeline operator, but it could be a lethal blow to a local grassroots environmental group.

“This is designed to discourage protest,” Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, told Dispatch Reporter Marty Schladen last week.

Maybe you disagree. Maybe nothing you've heard yet seems especially outrageous; darn hippies should be locked up for trespassing and vandalizing private property!

It is not that simple.

The wording of SB 33 is as murky as that gray sludge the pipeline companies spilled all over the landscape back when they were assembling their lines with all the care of a sugar-addled toddler cramming and jamming his way through a bucket of giant Legos.

SB 33 supporters and sponsor Sen. Frank Hoagland, a Republican from Mingo Junction, didn't seem especially eager to clarify things when pressed by Schladen. Curiously, for instance, no one involved wanted to define "tampering."

If a protester overturned a bulldozer and set it ablaze, no one would quibble whether that meets the definition of destruction. But why not flesh out the intent of "tampering"?

Is it tampering to block a driveway to a well pad? To hang a protest banner on a section of pipeline, or to simply stick a sign in the ground? Is it tampering to scuff your boots in the dust of a pipeline right of way when the industry doesn't particularly like what you're saying through that megaphone of yours?

And about those rights of way. They, too, are considered "critical infrastructure facilities," and SB 33 seems to suggest that protesters would be considered trespassers even where a right of way crosses public property. Even more confounding, they would be considered trespassers on a right of way even when they have explicit permission from the property's landowner to be there.

When Hoagland introduced SB 33 this year, his office regurgitated the talking points of the oil and gas industry.

"We are beginning to see how critical infrastructure provides essential energy, communications and other vital services and products to the entire state," Hoagland said in a statement prepared by someone. "This legislation seeks to increase measures of protecting these facilities from wrongful acts that can cause serious harm."

Hear that rumble? That's the sound of Big Oil and Big Gas. Their lines are laid and wells dug, but they're still tearing things up here in Ohio. Your liberties, to be exact.

tdecker@dispatch.com

@Theodore_Decker