Shocked, Shocked! JP Morgan Chase Talks Green, Emails To Shitstain Admin Show The Reality

[hatrack]

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Environmental watchdogs have had their doubts about JPMorgan’s commitment—not least because the bank at the time had on its board of directors the former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, a longtime climate skeptic who led the corporation when it aggressively fought government action to address climate change. Recently, in a report on fossil fuel financing by the climate group Rainforest Action Network, JPMorgan Chase earned the distinction as the “worst banker of fossil fuels” between 2016 to 2020, financing nearly $317 billion for the fossil fuel industry in that period, including oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and tar-sands extraction in Canada.

The bank undercuts its climate promises in important ways that are less visible to the public. The environmental group Friends of the Earth obtained emails from last April between JPMorgan Chase and top Treasury Department officials through a Freedom of Information Request and subsequent lawsuit. The batch of emails show JPMorgan requesting changes to government lending programs meant to help smaller and medium-sized businesses weather the economic fallout of the pandemic. They also capture an unusual snapshot of Wall Street’s interdependence on the future of fossil fuels.

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The same email includes a frank discussion of the ways the government could directly support bailouts for oil and gas sector, and protect banks exposed to heavy losses when oil prices were in free fall. One JPMorgan employee, Travis Machen, the head of Financial Institutions Corporate Client Banking, wrote, “Numerous banks, largely scattered across the South, have meaningful direct exposure to oil and gas (generally ranging from ~3-11% of total loans)” with fewer than 50 banks having “measurable direct exposure to the oil and gas sector.” Machen lists a menu of ideas for the federal government to intervene on the banks’ behalf, including “additional direct government support to the energy sector (similar to programs for the airline industry).” He suggests tailoring programs like the Main Street Lending Program, as well as a government bailout. The email includes some suggestions that were ultimately not taken up by the administration. For example, the executives proposed a program modeled after the troubled-asset TARP program to give the banking sector an injection of government-backed equity when it was facing steep losses.

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It’s unclear, based on the documents, how the Trump administration took up the specific items in the email. But there is plenty of evidence that both Wall Street and the fossil fuel sector did ultimately shape the terms of government lending to businesses. A March report from Public Citizen found the fossil fuel sector “in part responsible for the program’s failure to meet its goals,” weakening language on employer retention, loosening requirements around financial needs, and increasing the loan size even to businesses employing fewer than 10 workers. The result was 46 fossil fuel companies receiving $828 million in MSLP loans by the end of November. Twelve of those companies each received loans of $35 million or more:

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https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/04/jpmorgan-secretly-emailed-the-trump-administration-about-bailing-out-the-oil-industry/

[Mickju]

1. Disgusting