Last week millions of people tuned in with us to watch Earth Day Live. It was inspiring to see so many people gather together to demand that we protect the future of the planet.
Now, we need that same energy to make sure that the world’s worst polluters don’t take advantage of this moment of uncertainty to funnel billions of dollars into their own pockets and away from the people on the frontlines of the crisis.
There are two things you can do today to fight back against the fossil fuel industry:
Take action: Call Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell and tell him not to bail out big oil — the Trump administration just gave fossil fuel companies their complete wish list of changes to the new federal loan program, without adding any requirements to aid workers. While first responders work without hazard pay or PPE gear, polluters are looking for a lifeline from taxpayers for their failing, climate-wrecking industry.
Learn more: Sign up for our Climate Finance 101 this Thursday, May 7 at 6pm ET/3pm PT — the training will explore how the financial industry, from asset managers to banks to insurance companies, is fueling the climate crisis and how organizers from the global North to the global South are fighting back. This training will empower anyone to take on Wall Street as a tool to tackle climate change.
COVID-19 has laid bare the injustice of the current economic system, exposing just how precarious millions of people’s livelihoods are while simultaneously underlining how despicable fossil fuel companies are willing to be to preserve their profit margins.
Now, as Congress drafts the next COVID-19 relief package, we need to make sure that support gets to those who need it most, especially people of color and low-income communities who have been hardest hit by this crisis because of existing structural inequality.
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration is doing the opposite. They’re giving huge handouts to oil, gas and coal companies looking to profit off this crisis.
Industry lobbyists already convinced the EPA to stop enforcing pollution regulations indefinitely, including regulations on mercury pollution that were estimated to save 17,000 lives a year. This increase in pollution will disproportionately harm Black communities and is linked to more severe COVID-19 symptoms.
Now, after more lobbying, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is changing the Mainstreet Lending Program so that fracking companies and oil producers are eligible to use our public dollars to pay their pre-existing debt.
We can fight back — these tactics are meant to take advantage of a disorganized public that isn’t able to work together. If we work together we can stop these bailouts.
That’s also why there are two actions here: one for impact today and one that sets us up to win in the future.
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