Standing Rock Letter to Banks

Today several dozen pastors and elders of the Pittsburgh Presbytery signed on to a letter I wrote voicing our disapproval of our city's local banks that are lending to Energy Transfer Partners for the Dakota Access Pipeline. Read the letter below. Please feel free to cut and paste and write your own! Here's a link to learn more about the funding of this pipeline. DAPL Funding



February 16, 2017

PNC Bank
300 Fifth Avenue
The Tower at PNC Plaza
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Investor Relations:

Dear Bryan K. Gill and PNC Bank Executives,

PNC Bank prides itself on being an industry leader in green building and environmentally sound practices. We have commended you for this in the past. But, it is with sincere sadness that we write this letter in opposition to PNC bank’s funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline through Energy Transfer Partners. We have found that PNC has lent $270,000,000 toward the partners completing the pipeline. It has been clear since before construction began in August of 2016 that the Sioux Nation of Standing Rock have opposed the pipeline for reasons of environmental risk factors and proposed destruction of sacred land. PNC bank has remained invested in the project, while Native Americans have persistently ask that it be halted.

In December of 2016 the Obama Administration, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, ordered the pipeline be stopped pending a full environmental study and consultation of the Standing Rock Sioux nation. We were in support of this decision. Just days after the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump an executive order was signed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline with no environmental study and no more consultations with the Sioux people.

The fast tracking of this pipeline represents a continued marginalization by our government and the fossil fuel industry of Native American people and their voices. This pipeline also represents a national commitment to long term infrastructure designed for a future of increasing fossil fuel extraction and combustion. We believe this pipeline is unjust both environmentally and socially and we are calling on PNC Bank to remove all funding from this project. We also call on PNC Bank to take the environmental risks associated with the oil and gas industry more seriously and choose to invest in socially and environmentally responsible projects, such as wind and solar energy production.
It is with our faith and our faith communities that we request you make these changes and hear our voices. We will consider other banking options if we feel PNC continues to ignore the issues most important to our callings as people of faith.

With Faith and Hope,

Rev. John Creasy, The Open Door Presbyterian Church