Demonstrators filled the halls near a hearing room in the Ohio statehouse Wednesday to make their opposition to a bill criminalizing protest that ultimately passed through the state House Public Utilities Committee and is now headed to the floor. 

“You aren’t the people’s government! You’re the oil and gas industry’s government!”
—Ohio demonstrator

The legislation, Senate Bill 33, institutes stiff penalties for demonstrations that cause damage to infrastructure—a standard that the bill’s opponents say is aimed at stopping protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects.

“It’s meant to intimidate us into not using our voice,” Rev. Marian E. Stewart of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus told the Columbus Dispatch on Wednesday.

As the Dispatch reported, the legislation is part of a pattern in states looking to curtail the right to protest fossil fuel infrastructure:

Protesters in the hearing room voiced their disapproval.