Banking on Destruction: The Role of Major Banks in the Mountain Valley Pipeline
US main street banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America have provided loans to Mountain Valley Pipeline since the beginning. These banks have continued pouring money into the project over recent years, despite numerous warnings that the project has been financially unsustainable, a threat to the climate and environmental justice communities in Appalachia.
People have been fighting to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) for nearly a decade. From the environmental harms, Congress’ complicity, to shady financial entanglements– halting this 303-mile, fracked-gas project proposed to run from West Virginia through south central Virginia has been nothing short of an uphill battle. And yet, the resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline is stronger than ever.
Mountain Valley Pipeline under construction
Photo Credit: Mason Cummings
As we are entering a new phase of this fight it’s worth revisiting the web of financial interests that compromise people and the planet.
US main street banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America have provided loans to this destructive project since the beginning. These banks have continued pouring money into the project over recent years, despite numerous warnings that the project has been financially unsustainable, a threat to the climate and environmental justice communities in Appalachia.
Our seminal reports exposing the truth behind the MVP money streams the 2020 “New Money Behind Mountain Valley Pipeline” and original 2017 “Banks Behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline” expose labyrinthine landscape of the MVP’s financing.
In 2017, we released The Money Behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline. In it, we showed Equitrans Midstream Partners (EQM) as the driving force behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a then USD 3.5 billion. EQM’s financing revealed the clearest links to the banks that wanted to fund the pipeline. Eighteen banks were invested in EQM’s key financing sources. Six U.S. “main street” banks – banks that are leading providers of personal banking services in the United States – rank among the top eight financiers. These included Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC, SunTrust, Bank of the West (through parent company BNP Paribas) and U.S. Bank.
People will continue to fight until this unnecessary pipeline is dead and communities in Appalachia thrive with affordable renewable energy, good jobs, and a healthy climate.
Science and justice unequivocally demand a swift transition to renewable energy. Bank funding for fossil fuels brings dire threats to the lives and livelihoods of local communities around the world, including in Appalachia. We must stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline and end the era of fossil fuels.