SAN FRANCISCO - February 21 - Concerned citizens across the country demonstrated outside Merrill Lynch branches today, urging the bank to pull out of a deal to finance Dallas-based utility company TXU’s plan to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas. If completed, the new plants will emit 78 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year – larger than Japan’s entire emission reduction commitment under the Kyoto Protocol.
 
In Texas yesterday, a district court judge recommended that the fast-tracked permitting process be delayed, indicating that Governor Rick Perry’s executive order granting the fast-track would likely be found unconstitutional.
 
The demonstrations included rallies, street theater “die-ins” where activists feigned death by coal pollution, and visits from the humorous “Billionaires for Coal” to Merrill Lynch offices. The protests coincided with the first day of formal hearings to decide whether permits for the coal plants are merited.
 
A broad coalition of Texas mayors, businesses, and local and national environmental advocates are working to stop TXU from building its polluting coal-fired power plants. If TXU’s full expansion plans are completed in Texas and other states, the company would become the largest corporate greenhouse gas polluter in the United States. The outdated pulverized coal-fired technology being promoted by TXU is widely recognized by regulators and scientists as the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) polluting source of electricity.
 
“Today, concerned citizens across the country are sending a resounding message to Merrill Lynch to invest in our future rather than in TXU and dirty, climate-cooking energy,” said Scott Parkin, a campaigner at Rainforest Action Network. “As a responsible global citizen, Merrill Lynch should say no to TXU’s dirty energy schemes and embrace the environmental values held by its customers, employees and shareholders.”
 
In mid-December RAN issued formal letters to 56 financial institutions, including the project’s three lead arrangers – Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Citi – asking them to withhold financing for TXU’s project. The letters, from RAN’s Executive Director Michael Brune, called the TXU project a “risky transaction” and warned that in addition to the significant climate concerns, the expansion of the coal industry “is associated with destructive and unsafe methods of extraction, as well as the harmful local impacts of mercury and nitrogen oxide pollution.”
 
The letters also challenged banks to implement climate and energy policy protections that would ensure that they reduce the GHG intensity of their investments, and to support renewable energy sources such as wind and solar while shifting financial resources away from dangerous energy sources such as coal and nuclear. Twenty banks have already responded with a commitment to steer clear of TXU and its polluting plans.
 
Although GHG emissions are a leading contributor to climate change, CO2 emissions are currently unregulated in Texas and at the federal level in the United States. Texas already suffers from the country’s highest rate of CO2 emissions, while the U.S. generates the most GHG emissions in the world. The 78 million tons of CO2 pollution from TXU’s proposed project will be:
 
Larger than the total GHG emissions of several countries, including The Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Sweden.
More than 80 percent of the UK’s Kyoto emission reduction commitment.
Equivalent to the annual GHG emissions of adding 14 million new cars to U.S. roads.

For more information, visit www.dirtymoney.org <http://www.dirtymoney.org/> .

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