Inside Greenpeace Usa's Fight For Its Life

Greenpeace USA, one of the nation’s most iconic environmental groups, is threatened with extinction.

The green group is struggling after nearly a decade of losing court battles against a Texas-based energy company co-founded by a billionaire backer of President Donald Trump.

The group is facing possible bankruptcy if a judgment holds up finding that Greenpeace owes hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the oil pipeline company Energy Transfer. A North Dakota jury found that the environmental group had committed trespassing, conspiracy and defamation while opposing the company’s Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017.

Internally, the epic legal fight has already taken a toll. The group hasn’t had a permanent leader since its last one was sidelined in 2024. Senior lawyers exited the organization as litigation dragged on. And morale has slumped after the group cut about 20 percent of its staff in anticipation of a budget squeeze.

Beyond the crisis facing Greenpeace — one of several big-name environmental groups struggling with leadership crises and policy setbacks in the second Trump era — the outcome of the litigation could have wide-ranging implications that stretch to other nonprofits in the United States and beyond.

“This case could establish dangerous new legal precedents that could hold any participant at protests responsible for the actions of others at those protests, chilling free speech in the U.S. and beyond,” Greenpeace says on its website. “Simply put, our entire movement’s future could be in jeopardy.”

That existential threat has fueled a host of internal problems.

Greenpeace USA has an interim leader — Sushma Raman — after its last boss left in 2024 following internal disagreement about how to handle the Energy Transfer lawsuit. The group’s top lawyers also departed for new jobs earlier this year.

Raman took the helm of the group in September 2024 following the mysterious departure of Ebony Twilley Martin, who went on leave that June after about a year on the job.

Twilley Martin’s allies told POLITICO’s E&E News that she was sidelined due to an internal power struggle fueled by the ongoing litigation with Energy Transfer.

There had been “discussion and an opening for settlement” in that case, Willem van Rijn, who served as Greenpeace USA’s chief operating officer until April 2024, said last year in an interview. He did not address the legal merits of the case.

Twilley Martin urged the group to “settle for a minor amount of money so that we could fight another day,” van Rijn said. The “board not only disagreed, the board vehemently disagreed with the direction she was willing to take,” he said, calling the board’s response a “serious overreach” to “muzzle” its leader.

Twilley Martin declined to comment for this story.

The move left morale at “an all-time low,” a Greenpeace employee said at the time. That person was granted anonymity to describe internal workplace dynamics.

Last September, Greenpeace USA hired Raman, a veteran of academia and philanthropy, to serve as its interim boss. The boards of Greenpeace Fund and Greenpeace Inc. — the international organization’s two U.S.-based groups that make up Greenpeace USA — unanimously voted in August to renew Raman’s contract as interim executive director for another year.

“People are sad for sure” after the group cut staff through buyouts this year, said one former Greenpeace employee who’s still in touch with former colleagues and was granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

Meanwhile, the group recently announced openings for short-term positions with yearlong contracts, according to its hiring page. Greenpeace USA also recently posted a job ad for a new chief financial and operations officer.

To see the organization hiring for limited-term roles after the staff cuts is “confusing and saddening,” said the former employee.

‘We need to be leaner’

The hits kept coming.

This July, Greenpeace USA launched a voluntary separation program that resulted in the departure of nearly 20 percent of its staff.

The organization now employs about 91 staffers, said Greenpeace spokesperson Madison Carter.

“Our stance is that the disruptions and departures we faced over the summer are solely the fault of Energy Transfer and its cynical abuse of the legal system,” Carter said in an email. “These lawsuits are designed to burden nonprofits like ours with crushing legal costs and force difficult tradeoffs that harm our work, our people, and our movement.”

Energy Transfer welcomed the court’s early findings that Greenpeace is liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of damages, although a final judgment has not yet been issued.

“There are consequences for breaking the laws of the United States of America and we are pleased that Greenpeace has been held responsible for its actions against us related to their conduct during the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline,” the company’s press office said in an unsigned email. “This is also a win for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.”

Energy Transfer declined an interview request.

The North Dakota jury ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer earlier this year, but a judge slashed that amount to about $345 million in an order issued in October.

The legal spat is far from over — Greenpeace International has filed a countersuit in the Netherlands, and the U.S. fight could drag out and may eventually make it to the Supreme Court.

The group’s staff cuts came after the North Dakota trial, “knowing that our budget was going to be much, much tighter,” Carter said. “We had to roll out this program in an effort to reduce staff so that we didn't have to do layoffs.”

Greenpeace Inc.’s revenue was about $40 million in fiscal 2023, according to the group’s most recent publicly available tax filing. The affiliated Greenpeace Fund reported revenue of about $22 million in fiscal 2023.

In general, the group’s fundraising has been strong recently, Raman said in an interview.

People “around the country — whether they are high-net-worth individuals” or “regular folks” — are “really looking to engage in causes that advance just and free society and that protect the planet and people,” Raman said.

The staff reductions, she said, were an effort to “be cautious and ensure that we are able to meet our mission.” Greenpeace also recognizes, she said, that “we need to be leaner” and able to “respond more rapidly in the coming months to what is ahead for us.”

A new cast of leaders is running the show at the beleaguered green group.

Of the four employees on Greenpeace USA’s website featuring its senior managers, only one of them has been with the group for the duration of the legal battle.

Raman joined last September, Chief Development Officer Felicity von Sück rejoined the organization in January, and Marco Simons joined the group as interim general counsel in September. Rolf Skar, a member of the senior management team, has been with the group since 2007.

Simons joined the group as two senior lawyers exited the organization for jobs elsewhere.

Former Greenpeace General Counsel Jay Meisel left his position in September, and Deepa Padmanabha, a Greenpeace senior legal adviser, stepped down in October.

Padmanabha is “honored to have worked at Greenpeace USA for 14 years,” she told POLITICO's E&E News in October. “I poured my heart and soul into these legal cases, and I’m proud of how the organization fought and will continue to fight.”

After nearly a decade of this legal fight, “the long journey has had its impact on the organization,” Raman said of Greenpeace. “We’re really grateful for the staff who saw us through the trial and now have moved on to new roles and career opportunities,” she added.

The group is also bringing on new staff and relying on veterans who are still with the group, she said. “I see it as a point of regeneration as well as continuity.”