For reals! This is freaking BIG!!
“Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal. While we acknowledge that surface mining is economically efficient and creates jobs, it can be conducted in a way that minimizes environmental impacts in certain geographies.”
It looks like Bank of America is phasing out their financing of mountaintop removal operations in Appalachia.
This has been a major demand from RAN to Citi and Bank of America for over a year. I am pretty excited that Bank of America has seen the light and listened to all of your voices for the past couple of years about ending their support of this horrible practice.
This is a major grassroots victory. It was less than three weeks ago, we had the No Coal Day of Action with over 70 events calling out the banks for their funding of mountaintop removal (and parts of the coal life cycle).
I just want to say thanks for all your hard work, support and solidarity.
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whaaaaaat, that’s amazing. To all of those you have worked on this issue, well done!
woo-hoo!! Celebrations are in order as this is a big victory! Lets take to the streets and show Citi how easy it is to do the right thing and follow in BofA’s footsteps. Cheers to everyone who has taken part, shut down an ATM, been a billionaire, hung a banner, locked down, and gotten out the word about this campaign. Now its time to get Citi to do the same…its a good time to be a part of the movement.
There are victories that lead us on! Great work, much gratitude for all doing it!
one planet one people one love immi
FANTASTIC! it took massive coordinated efforts of activists doing direct action, activists as consumers, and activists working with shareholders and doing divestment work to win this victory — congrats to all! BoA saw the writing on the wall and recognized these efforts will continue until we win.
hey I just want to add, while them conceding on this demand (after years of us giving them a proverbial grassroots black eye on the issue) is great, the campaign is far from over:
A) they’ve yet to make any commitment on funding coal plants, and it doesn’t seem likely if they are so all over CCS with their friends from NRDC.
B) they haven’t committed to any comprehensive climate policy.
C) we’ve yet to see them follow through with pulling out of MTR. i hope they will, but it’s never over til it’s over and i just really don’t trust corporate types.
D) mountaintop removal is far from over. along with the financing of it by other banks like Citi and Chase. Bush just made it worse yesterday.
BUT that doesn’t mean i’m not going out to celebrate tonight (i am). it means that our grassroots campaigns are having an effect and we should continue to keep the pressure on them and the other financiers of the coal life cycle like Citi and JPMorgan Chase. we should celebrate it when our opposition gives in, but always remember that these are continuing struggles.
V is for victory…and vision! Now we can email Citi Bank and give them the good news!
HORRAY! holy hell, we done it! We Are Winning
but let’s definitely not forget to stay on their tails and see exactly how they plan on phasing their money out of MTR, and seeing that they do it quickly. in boston, we will continue to actively pressure bank of america to stop foreclosing and evicting working families, and to focus on community solutions.
this calls for a party
we’ll also be keeping up pressure on citi..
this is great news. check out this column I wrote relating to this topic
http://madrad2002.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/column-by-me/