Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)

Tell Congress to oppose bailouts for the fossil fuel industry!

Smokestacks Congress is debating whether to provide massive bailouts to save failing oil, gas, and plastic companies. But we can't allow the fossil fuel industry to profit off this crisis.

Channeling funds to fossil fuel companies would delay the transition to a green-energy economy, while in the short term, it would siphon away limited resources that are essential to protecting people's health and well-being.

Send a message to your member of Congress now to tell them to oppose this Big Oil bailout and ensure that money goes to people, not polluters.

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Dear [Decision Maker],

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I'm deeply concerned that federal bailout money that could go to working families will be used for corporate handouts to the fossil fuel industry.

I'm calling on you as a member of Congress to oppose all fossil fuel industry bailouts and support legislation to ensure that federal relief goes to people, not polluters.
 
With over 16 million people out of work, now isn't the time to be giving handouts to wealthy fossil fuel companies that are attempting to profit off this crisis. The industry has already lobbied the EPA to drop pollution regulations, rammed forward dangerous pipeline projects, tried to get out of providing healthcare for sick workers, and more. Meanwhile, they continue to fuel the other great crisis of our time: the climate emergency.

Furthermore, the economic crisis oil, gas and coal companies are facing goes far beyond the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a new report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), oil, gas, and petrochemical companies already showed clear signs of systemic weakness before 2020, including: long-term underperformance on stock markets; massive accumulations of corporate debt; questionable contracts and legal opposition in resource frontiers critical to the industry's future; fallen costs and rising deployment of renewable energy systems that undermine the economic case for natural gas as a "bridge fuel;" rapidly slowing growth in plastic demand at a time when the industry is investing more than $200 billion in new production facilities for plastic and petrochemicals; and growing investor skepticism about the long-term prospects for fossil fuels in a world that must act urgently to confront the climate crisis. (To read the full report, visit: https://www.ciel.org/PandemicCrisisSystemicDecline)

Bailing out wealthy fossil fuel companies will siphon away limited resources that are essential to protecting people's health and well-being and waste those resources on an already failing industry. Now more than ever, we should be rebuilding the future we want to see--not propping up industries that harm people and the planet.

I ask you to support a just recovery that helps working families, not wealthy CEOs. That means opposing any attempts to bail out the fossil fuel industry, providing real, meaningful oversight over the Trump Administration's $500 billion corporate relief fund, and getting direct relief to those on the frontlines of this crisis.

Please support people, not polluters.

Sincerely,