Alaskan Politican Introduces "Lucy Lawless Bill"!

This is just UNBELIEVABLE Below is the article from Anchorage Daily News that has me totally gobsmacked.  

An Alaska lawmaker has introduced legislation that would make it a felony to interfere with permitted oil and gas, timber or other development projects. He called it the "Lucy Lawless Bill"

Click here for the actual bill  |  Read The Article

Before we get to the article here is what happened (for those coming late to the party) on 24 February 2012 and for the next 3.5 days, Lucy and her fellow protesters brought the world's attention to Shell's plans for the Arctic:

In the early hours of 24 February 2012 in Taranaki, New Zealand,  7 fearless Greenpeace activists boarded the Noble Discoverer and scaled the derrick of the drill ship. They stayed up on that derrick for 3.5 days and by staying there they brought attention to the world Shell's plans for drilling in the Arctic. No longer was it a story relegated to the inner pages of the newspaper or deeply buried online. It shone a light on Shell's plans to be the first in a race to use up the Arctic's oil. Lucy Lawless used her name and her celebrity to such devastating effect that the whole world paid attention. That is not to take away from the rest of the Greenpeace protesters but if it wasn't for Lucy being involved, their valiant effort would have been overlooked. 

Rep. Eric Feige is calling HB92 the "Lucy Lawless bill," after the actress who last year boarded a Shell drill ship before it left New Zealand for the U.S. West Coast. She and other Greenpeace activists were arrested. Lawless, from New Zealand, is best known for her TV series, "Xena: Warrior Princess."

Feige, a co-chair of the House Resources Committee, said in an interview Thursday that Alaska has a good permitting process, through which the public can raise any concerns or complaints. He said in the last few years, there has seemed to be an increasing tendency from within the activist environmental movement to not just write letters to the editor, attend meetings or otherwise engage in the process. "They seem to want to take the law into their own hands," he said.

"What kind of a society are we devolving into when people think they can just do this stuff indiscriminately without any real penalty?" he asked.

Feige, R-Chickaloon, said the bill, introduced Wednesday is an effort "to get out ahead of some of the big projects that we hope to have down the road. These are projects that will contribute great things to the Alaska economy, and these are projects that, like any project, are vulnerable to criminal mischief."

There are a number of controversial projects in Alaska, involving mining, coal and offshore drilling. Shell, for example, has begun exploratory drilling in the Arctic waters off the Alaska coast. The proposed Pebble Mine, a massive copper and gold prospect near the headwaters of one of the world's premier salmon fisheries, has been the subject of a heated PR battle for years - and the group behind the project hasn't even moved into permitting yet.

The bill would make taking actions with the intent to interrupt or interfere with an industrial operation, authorized by a state permit, criminal mischief in the third degree. An industrial operation, as defined, would include a "construction, energy, or timber activity and oil, gas, or mineral exploration, development or production."

Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace, said in a statement that Greenpeace activists "are always proud to have their names associated with the work we do to save the planet from destruction. However, this misguided attempt to protect big industry from scrutiny is a misuse of taxpayer money.

"If the legislator was serious about protecting the state's future, he would listen to the coalition of First Nations groups and Alaskan citizens who oppose the catastrophic work of companies like Shell who clearly have no business in the Arctic," he said.

An email sent Thursday by The Associated Press to agency representing Lawless wasn't immediately answered.

See more on the AUSXIP Lucy Lawless Save The Arctic Support Page for more news, photos, video and other multimedia