The Race to Stop Tar Sands Pipeline Financing Before Loans Are Even Made
May 10, 2017
Efforts to defund Keystone XL target same banks that supported DAPL. “If you stop the flow of dollars, you stop the flow of oil.”
On Monday, a coalition of Indigenous leaders and other climate activists took over 12 JP Morgan Chase branches in Seattle for a day of protest against the financing of tar sands projects, including the newly revived Keystone XL pipeline. All 12 branches were shut down for at least part of the day, as was as a 13th branch that activists found already locked down when they arrived. Twenty-six activists were arrested.
Over the past year, tribes and cities, as well as individuals, have divested billions of dollars from banks funding the Dakota Access pipeline. Monday’s direct action was part of a new defund campaign that builds on that one but specifically targets the financing of tar sands pipelines. The campaign is coordinated by indigenous groups including Mazaska Talks and the 121 tribes and First Nations that have signed the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, as well as by the environmental group 350 Seattle.
This new campaign targets the dozens of banks that are directly financing at least one of four proposed tar sands pipelines: TransCanada’s Keystone XL, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain, Enbridge’s Line 3, and TransCanada’s Energy East. Seventeen of those banks are listed as “primary targets” at MazaskaTalks.org because they fund all four tar sands pipelines as well as the Dakota Access pipeline, or they’re leading multibank loans to the pipelines.
