WASHINGTON (Michigan News Source) – Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib of the 13th congressional district, which represents the western half of Detroit and many of its western suburbs as well as much of the Downriver area,
participated in a six-hour U.S. House Committee hearing on Financial Services on Wednesday. She advocated for a bank run as a protest against those institutions who invest in fossil fuel.

American Bank CEOs were in the hot seat at the hearing and she said to them, “So I would like to ask all of you, go down the list, because again you all are agreed to doing this (supporting long-term net-zero carbon emissions targets), please answer with a simple yes or no, does your bank have a policy against funding new oil and gas products? Mr Dimon?”

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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon responded, “Absolutely not, and that would be the road to hell for America.”

Tlaib threatened, “Yeah that’s fine. Sir, you know what, everybody that got relief from student loans [who] has a bank account with your bank should probably take their account and close their account.”

Dimon had made earlier comments about everyone discovering how insecure the global energy supply is and how investment in natural gas would be the best and cleanest burning alternative to coal in the future.

Dimon had said, “We aren’t getting this one right. The world needs 100 million barrels effectively of oil and gas every day. And we need it for 10 years. To do that, we need proper investing in the oil and gas complex. Investing in the oil and gas complex is good for reducing CO2. We’ve all seen, because of the high price of oil and gas – particularly for the rest of the world – you’ve seen everyone going back to coal.”

According to the Financial Times, JPMorgan Chase has been reportedly been considering exiting out of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero because of possible litigation related to climate-related requirements for their business. Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are also reported to be considering the same thing. The Alliance is a global coalition of leading financial institutions committed to accelerating the decarbonization of the economy.

An anonymous senior executive at a bank in the United States said at a meeting in recent months, “I’m close to taking us out of these global green commitments – I’m not going to allow third parties to create legal liabilities for us and our shareholders. It’s immoral and irresponsible.”

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After the House Committee hearing, the bank executives also appeared before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday. The hearing, which was about finances and industry oversight also included election-year politics with questioning about unionization efforts, racial equity, climate change issues, paying for employees’ abortion costs and gun rights.

New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez congratulated Citigroup’s female CEO Jane Fraser for her attendance by saying, “Ms. Fraser it’s good to see you because you’re about the only diversity we have seen in this industry.”