Friend,

Growing up, I thought the air pollution in Southwest Detroit was normal. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how our children are struggling to breathe because corporate polluters have poisoned our water and our air without accountability.

Before serving in Congress, I went up against the Koch brothers and won, forcing them to remove pollutants from Detroit’s riverfront. I’m not afraid to go toe-to-toe with billionaire bullies, and I know that they won’t change unless forced to.

That’s why I’ve launched investigations into corporate polluters, passed bills and amendments to support communities on the front lines of environmental injustice, and led Congressmembers in opposing COVID bailouts for the fossil fuel industry. Now, through the newly introduced Fossil Free Finance Act, I’m pushing to rein in the Wall Street banks that finance climate destruction. It’s time for accountability and action at the scale this crisis demands.

Can you chip in $5 or more today to help me go up against the billionaire bullies destroying our air and water?

Check out more about my new bill in the below email, and thank you so much for your support!

In solidarity,

Rashida

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Rashida Tlaib
Date: Mon, Sep 27, 2021
Subject: Taking on Wall Street banks funding the climate crisis
To: [email protected]

Friend,

The climate crisis is here. It’s happening now.

But fossil fuel corporations are still polluting our air and water without facing consequences, from Marathon Oil violating the Clean Air Act in my majority-Black district to Enbridge violating indigenous treaties while constructing the Line 3 pipeline.

No more! With our planet already at the limit for greenhouse gas emissions, we’ve got to act with urgency and at the scale we need. It’s time to cut off the funding for new fossil fuel projects.

To do just that, I introduced the Fossil Free Finance Act with Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Mondaire Jones.

The bill would require the Federal Reserve to treat the climate crisis as the existential threat that it is, by prohibiting banks from financing new or expanded fossil fuel projects after 2022 and all fossil fuel projects after 2030.

I’ve successfully taken on the Koch brothers for dumping industrial waste in my district, and now I’m taking on the Wall Street banks that fund fossil fuel projects. Can you chip in $5 or more today to help me go up against billionaire bullies and protect our right to clean air and water?

Over the last five years, financial institutions under the Federal Reserve’s supervision provided trillions in direct fossil fuel financing—and each new project brings us closer to the brink of climate and financial crisis.

It’s a lot like 2008’s Great Recession. Back then, regulators failed to rein in Wall Street banks’ reckless risks funding our housing sector. Meanwhile, Black and brown communities like mine were hardest-hit. Many of my neighbors had not yet recovered before the pandemic then hit.

By requiring banks to put an end to financing fossil fuel projects, we can meet our obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement while also preventing a financial crisis like 2008’s Great Recession.

The Federal Reserve’s role should not be to surrender our planet to corporate polluters and shepherd our financial system to its destruction.

As a member of the House Committee on Financial Services and Vice-Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment, I see that the Federal Reserve’s role is to act—but we have to push them to do what is right and necessary.

We’ve got no time to lose: Will you donate whatever you can afford today so I can keep taking on big banks and the fossil fuel industry?

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your secure donation will go through immediately:

Thank you so much. It is an honor to serve you in Congress.

- Rashida