December, 10 2020, 11:00pm EDT
![Stop the Money Pipeline](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012571/origin.jpg)
Climate Activists Announce National 'Covid-Safe' Day of Action Push Back against Wall Street's financing of Keystone XL and Minnesota Line3 Tar Sands Pipelines
Climate groups to provide footage of warning letters issued to banks and insurers.
WASHINGTON
Today across the nation activists in 60 cities and 25 states will utilize Covid-safe and creative ways to deliver letters calling on major banks to distance themselves from the funding of the toxic Keystone XL and Enbridge's Line3 tar sands pipelines as part of the day of action organized by the Stop the Money Pipeline (STMP), a coalition of now over 140 groups committed to ending the financial sector's support and funding of fossil fuel projects as a key pathway towards decarbonization.
Amid an intense spike in Covid related deaths and infections and stay home orders, the activists plan a "Covid-safe" Day of Action where hundreds of individuals in 60 cities and 25 states have agreed to deliver letters to local bank branches and insurance offices of the major funders and insurers of fossil-fuel investments calling on them to "NOT FUND or INSURE" the last two tar-sands pipelines - the toxic and disruptive Keystone XL, and Enbridge Line3 projects.
"You would have thought that Wall Street would have learned their lesson," said Alec Connon, Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition Co-Coordinator. "In 2016, the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline hit the financial sector hard. Protests were held at bank branches throughout the country. Thousands of people pulled their money out of Wall Street banks. City governments stopped banking with the funders of the pipeline. Yet once again Wall Street is complicit in funding an oil pipeline that violates Indigenous treaty rights and damages our climate. They can expect the backlash to be every bit as fierce as it was at Standing Rock."
In Seattle, activists will be participating in a car caravan, attaching large #DefundLine3 banners to trucks and cars, and taking the car caravan to Chase branches across the city. They will occupy the street outside of both Chase and Liberty Mutual's regional HQ, as activists go inside to deliver the letters in a COVID-safe fashion. In Portland, organizers will be taking a decommissioned fire truck to downtown Chase branches to demand that Chase helps put out the fires of the climate crisis.
Actions are planned in New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, Denver, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Madison, Minneapolis, and Charlotte. In Boston, Climate Finance Action will make deliveries to Liberty Mutual and BlackRock offices. In the Bay Area, activists will visit at least twenty bank branches in cities across the region. In Washington, DC activists with Shutdown DC will be delivering the letter to a branch of Chase Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank with banker CEO puppets, signs, banners, and chants while socially distanced. In Colorado, activists in Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs will be participating along with others in 25 states to carry out COVID safe letter deliveries at local bank branches such as Chase, Citi, and Bank of America or Liberty Mutual insurance offices as well.
This is a particularly crucial time for activists seeking to push the financial sector away from financing the Climate Emergency. Many are looking at building momentum leading up to the March 31, 2021, credit renewal date for a $2.1B credit facility renewal date for Enbridge. Eighteen banks are on the loan as lenders including the US banks Chase, Citi, and BOA. KXL is also entering a key period, and TC Energy is currently trying to secure a $4.5 billion loan for the project before year-end from some of the same banks.
"These financial institutions continue to be the drivers of the climate crisis. They continue to finance, and profit from, fossil fuel projects such as Line 3, TransMountain, and the Keystone XL pipelines that knowingly violate the treaty rights of Tribal Nations. Our Tribal communities continue to push back against and resist these earth-destroying projects," said Matt Remle (Lakota), co-founder of Mazaksa Talks. "People need to pick a side, stand with those protecting the air, water, lands, and health of communities for all peoples, or with those profiting from the destruction of the air, water, lands and health of our communities. It's that simple."
For many, the tar sands type of pipeline is extremely problematic due to the toxic impact on the environment, clean water, and rivers. These destructive impacts are only worse during a pandemic. The Enbridge Line3 project in Minnesota, if it goes through, could bring thousands of workers into tribal lands contributing to the spread of Covid. Additionally, worker camps also have been proven to contribute to sexual violence and trafficking against Indigenous women. If built, Line 3 would release as much greenhouse gas pollution as fifty new coal-fired power plants and would violate Ojibwe treaty rights, and put the state's water, ecosystems, and communities at risk
Many activists and indigenous communities are fighting against time and see this as the last line in the sand designed to hold off polluters until the incoming presidential administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris step in and forcibly move away from these represent anachronistic and dangerous policies as a nation committed to taking on the climate crisis with new vigor.
"This pipeline isn't about the so-called "safe" transportation of a necessary product it's the final gasp of a dying industry desperately trying to perpetuate fossil fuel use in a society that knows its past time to make better choices for energy use, " said Amy Gray, Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition Co-Coordinator. "All tar-sands pipelines leak and they wreak havoc from the extraction at the tar sands through the route of the pipeline all the way to the communities who live in the shadow of the refineries. It's time for Wall Street to stop funding these dangerous pipelines and respect Indigenous sovereignty, frontline communities and re-invest in a just and equitable transition to renewable energy."
The coalition plans to deliver the STMP cover letter, as well as the Indigenous Women's Tar Sands letter- sent last month to the CEOs of 70 major financial companies and insurers calling for them to respect their tribal rights and to end all ties to tar sands pipelines. 158 organizations, which collectively claim millions of supporters, have already signed on to the letter's demands to stop Line 3, Keystone XL, and all other toxic tar sands expansion projects.
QUOTE SHEET FOR DECEMBER 11th DAY OF ACTION
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"Line 3, Keystone XL, and all tar sands extraction and pipelines must be stopped immediately and financial institutions much be held accountable for their role in financing these projects and perpetuating further Indigenous rights violations, destruction of the climate, escalating harms to public health during a pandemic, and increased rates of violence toward Indigenous women living near 'man camps' associated with pipeline construction. As multiple crises in 2020 proliferate, business as usual must not and cannot continue. We must heed the call of Indigenous women leaders," said Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International.
"Line 3 and Keystone XL are fossil-fueled disasters. These pipelines violate Indigenous rights and would wreck the climate -- our analysis shows constructing both would be the equivalent of building hundreds of new coal plants. Supporting projects like Line 3 and Keystone XL in 2020 is unconscionable, and we're taking action to show financial institutions that the movement for climate justice won't let them get away with it any longer," said Collin Rees, Senior Campaigner at Oil Change International.
"Here in DC, we are committed to fighting to #Stopline3 and demand #NoKXL. We came out today to put Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank on notice that they better not fund the two remaining pipelines of the toxic tar sands project," said Liz Butler, organizer with Shut Down DC.
"This project is an insult to people in younger generations like mine who will be forced to live with the disastrous consequences of climate chaos and trashed wetlands here in Minnesota. Even worse, it is an assault on the fundamental rights of Indigenous communities and an intolerable continuation of settler colonialism." - Sasha Lewis-Norelle, Sunrise St. Paul, age 21
"Toward righting the ongoing wrongs of our European ancestors," said Cheryl Barnds, co-chair of Rapid Shift Network, "we deliver these letters in solidarity with the 41 Indigenous Women who have patiently asked CEOs of major global asset managers, banks, and insurers: With fossil fuel corporations plowing ahead with pipeline construction in the midst of a global pandemic and massive financial meltdown, we urge your institutions to immediately decline any support for TC Energy's Keystone XL pipeline, Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline, and the Canadian government's Trans Mountain pipeline - and to cut ties with these tar sands projects and companies."
As oil stocks plummeted this year, wildfires raged and clean water became more scarce than ever; somehow banks like Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and others still think it's ok to invest in fossil fuel infrastructure like Enbridge's Line 3 and KXL. There is no logic, aside from greed. Indigenous rights abuses continue to be perpetuated by the industry, and climate chaos is not a thing of the future any more, it is NOW. We are in the final hour to save our planet from hundreds of years of runaway climate change. Big banks must stop funding fossil fuel infrastructure immediately,"-said Kellie Berns, Program Director, Earth Guardians.
"We must end all tar sands extraction and pipeline projects immediately! Line 3 and KXL are violating Indigenous rights and pose devastating health risks to the Indigenous communities surrounding these sites, as well as to our planet overall. It's unconscionable that these projects were even considered, let alone moving forward in the middle of a pandemic. We took action today to expose the financial institutions bankrolling these projects like Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo to demand that they respect tribal rights and immediately end all ties to tar sands pipelines. Listen to Indigenous women leaders!" - Erika This Patterson, Campaign Director, Action Center on Race and the Economy
The Stop the Money Pipeline coalition is over 160 organizations strong holding the financial backers of climate chaos accountable.
LATEST NEWS
Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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JD Vance Doubles Down on Attack on 'Childless Cat Ladies'
Vance "meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
Jul 26, 2024
After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator's taxation proposal was "basically no different" than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.
In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
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