The developer behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, which for months drew thousands of protesters, has sued Greenpeace and several other environmental groups for their role in delaying the pipeline's construction. In the racketeering lawsuit it filed in federal court Tuesday, Energy Transfer Partners alleges these groups inflicted "billions of dollars in damage" with their "criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation" against the pipeline.

Greenpeace led a "network of putative not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups" — including Earth First! and BankTrack, who are also defendants — which disseminated false claims about the pipeline's impact on the environment and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's sacred sites, alleges the lawsuit.

Energy Transfer says the environmental groups, which together it refers to as "the Enterprise," engaged in racketeering and defamation that ended up increasing the cost of construction by at least $300 million...

"It is yet another classic 'Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation' (SLAPP), not designed to seek justice, but to silence free speech through expensive, time-consuming litigation,"...[declared Greenpeace lawyer]

Crude oil began flowing through the $3.8 billion pipeline earlier this summer, roughly half a year after the project was originally intended to be finished...

the tribe "argued the route would threaten the tribe's water sources and sacred sites," even winning a halt to construction — but only briefly...

..."We have an obligation to our shareholders, partners, stakeholders and all those negatively impacted by the violence and destruction intentionally incited by the defendants to draw a line." [sais Energy Transfer]