A Trump Appointee Is Trying to Force New Bank Investments in Fossil Fuel Extraction
Everyone knows the desperate need to stop fossil fuel extraction immediately to avoid climate catastrophe. But that hasn’t stopped a Trump-appointed financial regulator from trying to force banks to continue financing fossil fuel projects.

A Shoreside Petroleum oil tank trailer in Seward, Alaska, 2018. (Will Buckner / Flickr)
As climate change intensifies, Wall Street firms are under pressure to stop investing in projects that make the crisis worse. But after Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation complained that banks were pulling back from Arctic oil and gas development, a Trump-appointed financial regulator just announced a new rule designed to force banks to continue financing fossil fuel projects.
The rule follows a separate move by the Trump Labor Department to try to block investors from pulling their money out of oil and gas companies.
The latest rule from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) requires large banks with more than $100 million in assets to adhere to a “nondiscrimination” policy that bars them from attempting to disadvantage clients in specific industries.