A Texas pipeline company's lawsuit seeking potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace was set to advance with opening statements Wednesday in a trial the environmental organization calls an effort to silence critics of the oil industry.

A behemoth defamation lawsuit brought by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline against Greenpeace began its trial in a Mandan courtroom on Monday. Energy Transfer, a Texas-based oil and gas company,

A coalition of media organizations, including the North Dakota Monitor, petitioned the state Supreme Court Thursday seeking expanded access to the trial involving the Dakota Access Pipeline developer and Greenpeace.

An attorney for Energy Transfer claimed it was "a day of reckoning," while Greenpeace attorneys said there was no evidence to prove the pipeline owner's claims.

An attorney for a Texas pipeline company said Wednesday at trial that he will prove various Greenpeace entities coordinated delays and disruptions of a controversial oil pipeline's construction in North Dakota,