Wells Fargo becomes latest bank to restrict financing of firms removing mountaintops for coal

Last month Wells Fargo became the sixth major bank to restrict financing for mining companies that practice mountaintop removal. Since May, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo have enacted policies to restrict mountaintop-removal financing as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to increase regulation of the controversial mining practice, Cameron Scott of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on The Thin Green Line blog. Also the "need to get better, rather than worse, PR since the financial industry ran the global economy into dust," appears to have factored in the decisions, Scott writes.

"We are seeing a sector-wide shift away from an increasingly controversial practice that is devastating Appalachian communities and the mountains and streams they depend on," Rebecca Tarbotton, Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network, which has campaigned against mountaintop-removal financing, said. She added: "Bottom-line, as access to capital becomes more constrained it will be harder for mining companies to finance the blowing up of America's mountains." (Read more)