This is Democracy Now!
I’m Amy Goodman.
Millions around the world are celebrating Earth Day today, following a week of enormous
climate activism here in the U.S. and abroad.
In the United Kingdom, nearly 1,000 people have been arrested after a week of actions,
as demonstrators with the group Extinction Rebellion shut down bridges and streets, occupied
public landmarks, superglued themselves to trains and the Shell Oil headquarters, and
rallied across London to demand radical action on climate change.
On Sunday, 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg addressed a crowd of thousands at
London’s Marble Arch.
We are now facing an existential crisis, the climate crisis and ecological crisis, which
have never been treated as crisis before.
They have been ignored for decades.
And for way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with
not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and the ecological crisis.
But we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer.
Last week, Greta Thunberg met with the pope.
Back in the U.S., hundreds of protesters rallied at New York City Hall and marched across the
Brooklyn Bridge Thursday to demand a halt to the proposed Williams pipeline project,
which would carry fracked gas from Pennsylvania’s shale fields under the New York Harbor.
President Trump signed two executive orders earlier this month to facilitate the approval
of pipeline projects, limiting states’ ability to regulate such projects, the moves intended
in part to clear the way for permitting on the northeastern Constitution pipeline, which
has stalled after New York invoked the Clean Water Act to reject the project on environmental
grounds.
This comes as climate activists have filed a federal lawsuit with the ACLU challenging
three South Dakota laws that they say violate the First Amendment rights of anti-pipeline
organizers.
Earlier this month, Nermeen Shaikh and I sat down with an organizer with Indigenous Environmental
Network.
He is Dallas Goldtooth, Dakota and Diné, who’s one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU
lawsuit.
I started by asking him to respond to Trump’s executive orders.
What we’re seeing right now with these executive orders is nothing but an act of aggression
against the authority for states to protect their homelands or protect the residents of
their state and the lands within the borders of those states, mainly targeting the Clean
Water Act.
Really, what Trump wants to do is take away the states’ abilities to enforce environmental
regulations against pipeline projects or other infrastructure, fossil fuel projects, and
take and give that power solely to the federal government.
You know, this is—it’s kind of absurd that, you know, Trump, being a representative
or the figurehead of the Republican Party, is wholeheartedly endorsing an ideology that
the federal government has a final say over what happens within the borders of a state
and that the state has very little recourse to address these issues.
The other—there are just two executive orders, so that was the first one.
The second one really specifically talked—focuses on the cross-border—the border crossing
of pipelines.
In this regard, we’re talking about Keystone XL.
I know Enbridge, Enbridge Line 3, was also one of those pipelines that had to deal with
crossing the border from Canada to transport tar sands oil.
And really what the president is trying to do, and he did this a couple weeks ago by
approving Keystone XL a second time, is saying that he, as the president, has the sole power
to approve these projects, and is encouraging the State Department to say—to act only
as advisers to the president to sign these projects.
And there’s something really—something really insidious and dangerous about this,
that is just a part, a continuing part, of Trump’s legacy for overreaching his executive
powers, is that the president has stated that because he is the president, he is not a federal
agency, therefore he’s not beholden to any environmental regulations that federal agencies
have to follow, in particular the National Environmental Protection Act, parts of the
Clean Water Act.
You know, he’s saying that, “As the president, I actually am—I don’t have to follow those,
because I’m not a federal agency.”
And that’s very, very dangerous precedent to start here, especially as we look towards
a rapid expansion of fossil fuel development in this country at this current moment and
what we’re trying to fight against in the protection of Mother Earth and the sacredness
of the land itself.
And, Dallas Goldtooth, could you talk about, in fact, some of the efforts that states have
been making to resist, block these pipelines, in Pennsylvania, for example, and elsewhere?
Yeah.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen a lot of states become more aware about the dangers
of fossil fuel infrastructure projects and the risks that they pose to drinking water
and to clean air.
I think, on the big picture, we’re seeing a greater understanding about how these projects
lock us into more fossil fuel development, and therefore add to the climate chaos that
we’re seeing with the increase of greenhouse gas emissions.
And so you’re seeing some states, like Pennsylvania or even New York, who are taking steps to
address that by putting moratoriums on fracking development or having a more stringent process
or a more stringent evaluation of pipeline projects and their impacts, whether it’s
very specific or cumulative impacts on climate overall.
And one of those examples that the president has referenced specifically is how New York
state has used the Clean Water Act to to halt the continuation of the Constitution pipeline
in that area.
On the flip side, we’re also seeing states who are trying their very hardest to increase
fossil fuel development in their areas.
And one way that they’re doing that is to suppress the ability for common, everyday
citizens to publicly protest against them or to use their First Amendment rights to
speak out against these projects’ impacts on their communities.
Last month, the Rainforest Action Network, along with a coalition of environmental groups,
including your group, the Indigenous Environmental Network, released its annual fossil fuel finance
report card called “Banking on Climate Change.”
The report showed that 33 of the world’s largest banks have financed $1.9 trillion
into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016.
Michigan Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib referenced the report as she questioned
CEOs from the nation’s largest banks Wednesday at a congressional hearing called “Holding
Megabanks Accountable.”
A report released two weeks ago shows that fossil fuel lending and underwriting is dominated
by big U.S. banks, four of which are sitting right here in front of us.
Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, as well as Bank of America are top four banks in the world
financing fossil fuel industry.
Mr. Dimon, your bank alone has provided more than $195 billion in fossil fuel lending and
underwriting over the past three years, since signing of the Paris climate agreement, making
your bank the number one funder of fossil fuels in the world.
Citi, Mr Corbat, has provided more than $129 billion in fossil fuel funding over the past
three years, number three in the world.
Mr Moynihan, Bank of America has provided more than $106 billion in fossil fuel funding
over the past three years, making it number four in the world.
I want folks—don’t say that you’re committed to clean and sustainable financing, because
your companies’ words are not consistent with your actions.
I would call this gaslighting.
That’s kind of what we call it in the neighborhood.
But for the sake of this hearing, I’ll say that you are greenwashing your own track record
in duping the American people into believing that you are helping address climate change.
On the record, will any of your banks make a commitment to phase out your investments
in fossil fuels and dirty energy and align your investments with the goals of Paris climate
agreement, to help protect our planet and communities I grew up in?
That goes to all of you, if you guys can answer that.
Mr Corbat?
We have—we are in the business of supporting fossil fuel companies, many of which are U.S.-based
companies.
That’s Michael L. Corbat, CEO of Citigroup, responding to that question from Michigan
Congressmember Rashida Tlaib.
Dallas Goldtooth, overall, your response to what she is raising?
You could hear a penny drop in that room when she asked that question.
You know, she raised a great point, based on the report that I, again, was a part of.
That was the fossil fuel financial report that was put out.
You know, at the top of the list—I mean, what that report does is it lists the top
banks who are financing fossil fuel production—or, fossil fuel expansion across the globe.
And JPMorgan Chase is at the very top of that.
Wells Fargo comes in a close second.
The top leading banks in the United States are all heavily invested in fossil fuels.
And that’s why we are leading a major divestment campaign, to make sure that we are holding
these banks accountable.
That’s Dallas Goldtooth, Diné and Dakota activist, organizer with the Indigenous Environmental
Network.
To hear the whole conversation with Dallas, you can go to democracynow.org.
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