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Try CasePortal for FreeJ. Summerhays denies summary judgment to the so-called “White Hat plaintiffs,” environmentalists and other activists protesting a controversial pipeline project on a Louisiana bayou. The court rejects their arguments that a “critical infrastructure” law, amended by oil lobbyists after their protest to provide prison time for trespassing on property marked for pipeline construction, is unconstitutional. The law expressly excludes protected First Amendment expressive conduct from the statute’s prohibitions. To the extent that they seek a declaration that the law is unconstitutional as applied to future anticipated protests of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, “the White Hat plaintiffs lack a constitutionally protected right to protest on private property.” Violators of the amended trespassing law face up to five years in prison and $1,000 in fines.