The US Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), and its president Fred Hochberg, have never met a coal project they don’t like. At times it’s so bad we don’t know what century the institution thinks it is operating in. Now despite a worldwide uproar over their interest in one of the world’s largest coal ‘mega-mines’ in Australia they have been linked to another Australian mega mine (http://reut.rs/NRb26S). Underwriting the havoc this would wreak on the Great Barrier Reef is an unacceptable use of US tax payer dollars and it’s time Ex-Im Bank came clean on its involvement. (click image below to enlarge)

 
It’s not surprising to hear over-eager developers link the Ex-Im Bank to these projects because the institution has a long history of supporting fossil fuel projects – and that track record is getting worse. It got so bad that the Sierra Club wrote an open letter to President Fred Hochberg because we have witnessed first hand the destruction these projects are wreaking on communities and livelihoods (check out our blog on the Sasan coal project in India).

But our pleas were callously ignored as President Hochberg ok’d a massive expansion of coal finance in every corner ...

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