Obama Quietly Undercutting Climate Legacy With Foreign Fossil Fuel
Investments: Investigation
Published on
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
by
Common Dreams
Obama Quietly Undercutting Climate Legacy With Foreign Fossil Fuel
Investments: Investigation
Under Obama, Ex-Im Bank has gotten three times more financing than during
George W. Bush's terms
by
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
A coal-fired power plant near Becker, Minnesota. (Photo: Tony
Webster/flickr/cc)
President Barack Obama's climate credentials are being undermined by a
federal agency in his administration that is putting billions of taxpayer
dollars into foreign fossil fuel projects.
So finds a Columbia School of Journalism and Guardian investigation
published Wednesday which looks at the U.S. Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im
Bank, which is tasked with promoting U.S. exports.
Based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, their
investigation found: "Since January 2009, the U.S. Export-Import Bank has
signed almost $34bn worth of low-interest loans and guarantees to companies
and foreign governments to build, expand, and promote fossil fuel projects
abroad."
That total is roughly "three times more financing than the taxpayer-backed
bank provided during George W. Bush's two terms, and almost twice the amount
financed with loans and guarantees under the administrations of Ronald
Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton-combined"
The biggest investment was almost $5bn in 2012 to Dow Chemical and Saudi
Aramco for a power boiler and heat exchange manufacturing for a new
petrochemical plant in the kingdom.
The financing hit a peak of $10bn in 2013. In that year, as climate advocacy
group Friends of the Earth (FOE) has noted, Obama "announced an end to
public financing for coal plants abroad, except in limited circumstances."
The new reporting continues:
Our investigation shows the president's domestic climate policies, including
the 1.1bn ton carbon reduction promised with his new vehicle engine
efficiency standards and the 2.5bn ton carbon savings the pending clean
power plan is estimated to make, will largely be erased by the bank's
overseas emissions.
The climate impact of greenhouse gas emissions is the same, the reporting
notes, whether they are spewed out from somewhere in the U.S. or elsewhere
in the world. The investigation adds:
Using information from the Energy Information Administration, if the Clean
Power Plan were enacted this year, over the next 15 years it would reduce
U.S. carbon emissions by about 2.5bn tons. That is nearly the same number
that the Ex-Im Bank's overseas fossil fuel projects will produce over 15
years, assuming they were all running at full capacity.
It's not the first time the bank has come under fire for fueling climate
change.
Environment advocacy group Pacific Environment, for example, said in 2012
that "[t]he Obama Administration is supporting skyrocketing export subsidies
for dirty fossil fuels" via the bank. "Ex-Im Bank's worsening fossil fuel
binge makes a mockery out of the U.S. Government's stated efforts to curb
climate change and President Obama's pledge to phase out fossil fuel
subsidies," said Doug Norlen, the group's policy director, at the time.
ThinkProgress also wrote last year that
FOE has been fighting against Ex-Im's practices since 2002, when the group
issued a lawsuit against the bank over its support of natural gas projects.
The group has been trying to make sure the bank stops financing fossil fuel
projects that can be harmful to the environment and local people, and
instead finance renewable energy projects, such as solar and wind. FOE is
also pushing for the Ex-Im Bank to have a high level of transparency with
properly enforced regulations."
The Ex-Im Bank's future, however, is uncertain. Politico writes that it "has
been operating at less than full capacity for nearly a year and a half." The
New York Times reports: "In December, the bank's bipartisan supporters in
Congress secured the agency's reopening," but Senate Banking Chairman
Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) "bottled up President Obama's nomination of a third
member for the bank's five-person board. Only the board can approve
transactions of more than $10 million; without a quorum of three it cannot,"
the Times wrote.
For his part, President-elect Donald Trump said last year, "I'd be against
it" and called the bank "a lot of excess baggage."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
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Obama Quietly Undercutting Climate Legacy With Foreign Fossil Fuel
Investments: Investigation
Published on
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
by
Common Dreams
Obama Quietly Undercutting Climate Legacy With Foreign Fossil Fuel
Investments: Investigation
Under Obama, Ex-Im Bank has gotten three times more financing than during
George W. Bush's terms
by
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
. 9 Comments
.
. A coal-fired power plant near Becker, Minnesota. (Photo: Tony
Webster/flickr/cc)
. President Barack Obama's climate credentials are being undermined by
a federal agency in his administration that is putting billions of taxpayer
dollars into foreign fossil fuel projects.
. So finds a Columbia School of Journalism and Guardian investigation
published Wednesday which looks at the U.S. Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im
Bank, which is tasked with promoting U.S. exports.
. Based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,
their investigation found: "Since January 2009, the U.S. Export-Import Bank
has signed almost $34bn worth of low-interest loans and guarantees to
companies and foreign governments to build, expand, and promote fossil fuel
projects abroad."
. That total is roughly "three times more financing than the
taxpayer-backed bank provided during George W. Bush's two terms, and almost
twice the amount financed with loans and guarantees under the
administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill
Clinton-combined"
The biggest investment was almost $5bn in 2012 to Dow Chemical and Saudi
Aramco for a power boiler and heat exchange manufacturing for a new
petrochemical plant in the kingdom.
The financing hit a peak of $10bn in 2013. In that year, as climate advocacy
group Friends of the Earth (FOE) has noted, Obama "announced an end to
public financing for coal plants abroad, except in limited circumstances."
The new reporting continues:
Our investigation shows the president's domestic climate policies, including
the 1.1bn ton carbon reduction promised with his new vehicle engine
efficiency standards and the 2.5bn ton carbon savings the pending clean
power plan is estimated to make, will largely be erased by the bank's
overseas emissions.
The climate impact of greenhouse gas emissions is the same, the reporting
notes, whether they are spewed out from somewhere in the U.S. or elsewhere
in the world. The investigation adds:
Using information from the Energy Information Administration, if the Clean
Power Plan were enacted this year, over the next 15 years it would reduce
U.S. carbon emissions by about 2.5bn tons. That is nearly the same number
that the Ex-Im Bank's overseas fossil fuel projects will produce over 15
years, assuming they were all running at full capacity.
It's not the first time the bank has come under fire for fueling climate
change.
Environment advocacy group Pacific Environment, for example, said in 2012
that "[t]he Obama Administration is supporting skyrocketing export subsidies
for dirty fossil fuels" via the bank. "Ex-Im Bank's worsening fossil fuel
binge makes a mockery out of the U.S. Government's stated efforts to curb
climate change and President Obama's pledge to phase out fossil fuel
subsidies," said Doug Norlen, the group's policy director, at the time.
ThinkProgress also wrote last year that
FOE has been fighting against Ex-Im's practices since 2002, when the group
issued a lawsuit against the bank over its support of natural gas projects.
The group has been trying to make sure the bank stops financing fossil fuel
projects that can be harmful to the environment and local people, and
instead finance renewable energy projects, such as solar and wind. FOE is
also pushing for the Ex-Im Bank to have a high level of transparency with
properly enforced regulations."
The Ex-Im Bank's future, however, is uncertain. Politico writes that it "has
been operating at less than full capacity for nearly a year and a half." The
New York Times reports: "In December, the bank's bipartisan supporters in
Congress secured the agency's reopening," but Senate Banking Chairman
Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) "bottled up President Obama's nomination of a third
member for the bank's five-person board. Only the board can approve
transactions of more than $10 million; without a quorum of three it cannot,"
the Times wrote.
For his part, President-elect Donald Trump said last year, "I'd be against
it" and called the bank "a lot of excess baggage."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
