Taking on Wall Street
Wall Street banks are funding the climate crisis with our tax dollars. Between 2015 and 2017, these banks collectively provided over $50 billion in financing for coal power, drilling, tar sands, mining and natural gas projects around the world.
Putting money in these banks is lining the pockets of polluters. This money is enabling harmful projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone XL Pipeline that are destroying livelihoods, wildlife and our environment.
Instead of helping polluters profit, places like North Dakota, Germany and the American Samoa have opted to create public banks. These banks reinvest public tax dollars in local communities, ensuring that funds are supporting public interest needs — not Wall Street.
Thanks to a massive grassroots effort by activists, California just passed legislation to legalize public banks! By passing this legislation, the state now has the opportunity to fund initiatives focused on renewable energy, affordable housing and children’s education instead of projects that are destroying our planet.
Friends of the Earth members in the state played a massive role in this bill’s passage with 70 members calling their legislators and more then 4,800 members emailing their legislators in favor of the bill.
We thank our members for speaking out and working to take on the most powerful industry on the planet. Your voices helped fund projects that will save our planet, not destroy it.