Citi Shareholders Asked to Get Principled About Their Investments

Outside Citi’s annual shareholder meeting in April, 50 supporters of Rainforest Action Network (RAN) made sure every shareholder entering the meeting knew the giant bank is funding coal projects and why that funding should stop.

Inside the meeting, OVEC organizer Maria Gunnoe was one of a couple of folks speaking in support of Shareholder Resolution No. 9, calling on Citi to cease financing of coal-fired power plants and mountaintop removal coal mining.

Speaking directly to Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and Chairman Sir Win Bischoff, Maria said:

"My name is Maria Gunnoe and I am a resident of Bob White in Boone County, WV. I want to congratulate you on your recent commitment to the ‘Carbon Principles.’ But, I also want to speak to your ongoing commitment to the coal industry through various loans and investments. I come from a place where your clients and customers use ‘mountaintop removal’ coal mining to extract seams of coal by literally exploding the tops off of mountains and dumping them into nearby valleys. They have little consideration about whether people are living near their mining sites or not. And they have little consideration of the impact of their operations on the diversity of the mountains and wilderness and citizens of Appalachia.

"So I ask you: Where is the ‘principle’ in financing Arch Coal? Arch Coal is the second largest coal company in the U.S. with active mines in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia using a variety of strip mining techniques including mountaintop removal…

"Where is the ‘principle’ in banking with Massey Energy? Massey Energy is the ‘poster child’ of mountaintop removal. Besides destroying Appalachia’s mountains on a daily basis, Massey Energy operates a coal loading silo and a 2.8 billion gallon leaking toxic sludge dam above Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia…

"Where is the ‘principle’ in investing in Alpha Natural Resources? Alpha is the second largest producer of mountaintop removal coal. Shareholder Resolution No. 9 requests that Citi amend its carbon emissions policies to cease all financing, investment and any further involvement in activities that support mountaintop removal …

"How can shareholders think that we have addressed the carbon policy adequately without addressing coal from the cradle to the grave? As long as the coal industry, and its bankers, wage war on the mountains and people of Appalachia, this resolution remains the only true ‘carbon principle’."