Disagree with John Kerry?
No more bank services for you!

They’re coming for you next: The Biden administration, under the leadership of its “climate envoy” John Kerry, is apparently working behind the scenes to force banks to blackball fossil fuel companies from obtaining financial services.

Not surprisingly, the initial news stories from the mainstream press in mid-March describing this effort were written to hide the Biden administration’s goals. For example, Politico described a number of meetings arranged by Kerry and the Biden administration both with climate activist groups as well as financial institutes aimed at making those financial institutions “put your money behind your climate PR,” but the article only hinted at what the goals were.

Kerry has pitched banks on creating a U.S. net-zero banking alliance following the climate commitments from six major Wall Street banks, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs all set 2050 net-zero goals and JPMorgan Chase has said its lending would be aligned with the Paris agreement although Kerry and his team are pushing for more specific financial commitments as part of this effort.

Kerry also wants clear near-term actions from banks by 2030, which would align with the Biden administration’s timeline for the new emissions target it intends to submit as part of the Paris Climate Agreement process. [emphasis mine]

Doesn’t meeting “net-zero” goals for climate change sound wonderful? But what does it mean?

Similarly, the Guardian described this campaign as “US banks … pledging to help fight the climate crisis alongside the Biden administration,” without describing what that meant. Instead the article’s focus was on all the board members on American banks who had ties to the evil fossil fuel industry and therefore needed to be blackballed also.

So, what exactly is the Biden administration demanding banks do to fight global warming? It is very simple. This Democrat-controlled White House wants banks to stop issuing any loans or services to any fossil fuel company or to any project they wish to start. Blacklist them. Shut down their ability to do any business at all. And do so simply because the Biden administration dislikes what they do, not because of the best financial practices required of banks by federal law.

How do I know this? I read other sources of news (something any intelligent educated American should do), which have not only reported these facts but are also reporting the growing opposition to this financially foolish and very illegal policy of discrimination. For example, in mid-April Breitbart reported how a group of 45 Republican congressmen delivered a letter to the White House opposing this effort for exactly these financial and legal reasons. From the letter:

“We write to you to express concern with your decision, as reported in the press, to pressure U.S. banks to make radical, overly prescriptive commitments related to climate change that may not be in the best interest of their businesses, shareholders, employees or customers. Such pressure from a senior Administration official is a blatant abuse of power,” the letter said. “Your actions, and the broader actions of the Biden Administration on financial regulation, threaten to compromise the competitiveness of American financial institutions, ignore market demand in energy consumption, increase prices for consumers and kill American jobs.

…“Pressure on banks by public officials to cut off financing to fossil energy, or otherwise limit their ability to extend credit to American energy producers or traditional utilities, is political rhetoric masquerading as risk management,” the letter said. “Politicizing access to capital and choking off funding to industries that millions of Americans rely on is unacceptable, especially in times of economic and financial uncertainty.”

Similarly, Reuters yesterday released a story that was picked up by a few sources outlining how the treasurers of fifteen states have vowed to withdraw their assets from any bank that goes along with the Biden administrations blackballing effort against energy companies.

From the letter [pdf]:

As a collective, we strongly oppose command-and-control economic policies that attempt to bend the free market to the political will of government officials. It is simply antithetical to our nation’s position as a democracy and a capitalist economy for the Executive Branch to bully corporations into curtailing legal activities. … We refuse to allow the federal government to pick our critical industries as losers, based purely on President Biden’s own radical political preferences and ideologies.

…Therefore, we intend to put banks and financial institutions on notice of our position, as we urge them not to give in to pressure from the Biden Administration to refuse to lend to or invest in coal, oil, and natural gas companies. As the chief financial officers of our respective states, we entrust banks and financial institutions with billions of our taxpayers’ dollars. It is only logical that we will give significant weight to the fact that an institution engaged in tactics that will harm the people whose money they are handling before entering into or extending any contract.

The real issue here however is the effort of the Biden administration to use its executive power to blackball a specific group of private companies, merely because the Biden administration doesn’t like the business they are in. Should these tyrants succeed this time, they will next be able to do the same in all areas. Are you a Republican? Well, a Democratic administration will certainly want to use its power to pressure banks and other businesses to blacklist you. Maybe you run a webpage critical of politicians. Well, you really shouldn’t be allowed to use a bank or get loans. At least, not without the permission of those politicians.

And don’t think I fear such oppression only from Democrats. Once it is established that such intolerant behavior is the norm, I fully expect the thugs in the Republican Party to pile on, for their own benefit. Right now many Republicans might doing the right thing to fight this oppressive Biden policy, but some are probably doing it because they are getting money for fossil fuel companies. Many others might be doing it for good moral reasons, but being politicians we must always consider their attachment to morality to be shallow and easily subverted.

Remember, they are really in this business for power, and power corrupts.

The only real protection the American people have against such power grabs is to fire politicians immediately who do this. Since the Democrats are eagerly promoting these Mafia-like tactics, Americans must stop voting for them. Sadly, I don’t expect this to happen. Too many Americans have bought into this party, and put its agenda above all else, even to the point of destroying their own freedoms and rights as defined by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.