Man Who Shot at Pipeline and Power Station Gets 25 Years in Prison

A Canadian man who, in an attempt to raise awareness about climate change, used a high-powered rifle to fire shots at a pipeline in South Dakota in 2022 and a power station in North Dakota in 2023 was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in federal prison.

The man, Cameron M. Smith, 50, who pleaded guilty last September in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., to two counts of destruction of an energy facility for the vandalism, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution.

In July 2022, Mr. Smith used a high-powered Bushmaster rifle to fire rounds into a transformer and pump station that was part of the Keystone Pipeline in Clark County, in eastern South Dakota, according to court records. The act caused about $500,000 in damage and disrupted the pipeline, which carries oil from Canada through the United States, records show. Electrical service to some customers in North Dakota was also disrupted, prosecutors said.

Ten months later, in May 2023, Mr. Smith again used a Bushmaster rifle to shoot at the Wheelock electric substation near Ray, in northwest North Dakota, causing about $1.2 million in damage, court records show.

All energy facilities are federally protected, and damaging them can be deemed an act of terrorism if an attack is intended to “affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate,” according to the Justice Department. Judge Daniel Traynor of U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., found that Mr. Smith’s actions had met that definition — a finding reflected in the sentence he handed down.

Mr. Smith, whose lawyer said he is autistic, was an online marketer who was renting a small home on the Oregon coast at the time of his arrest. He was not working at the time.