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Seattle Will Divest from Pipeline-Supporting Wells Fargo
from the another-way-to-resist dept.
NPR (formerly Nation Public Radio) reports [npr.org]
2 Cities To Pull More Than $3 Billion From Wells Fargo Over Dakota Access Pipeline
Seattle's City Council has voted to not renew its contract with Wells Fargo, in a move that cites the bank's role as a lender to the Dakota Access Pipeline project as well as its creation of millions of bogus accounts. As a result, the city won't renew its contract with the bank that expires next year.
The unanimous vote will pull more than $3 billion in city funds from the banking giant, the council says. Seattle says the bidding process for its next banking partner will "incentivize 'Social Responsibility'".
Not long after Seattle's vote, the City Council in Davis, Calif., took a similar action over the pipeline. It voted unanimously to find a new bank to handle its roughly $124 million in accounts by the end of 2017.
[...]Seattle's plan to stop its dealings with Wells Fargo comes months after the city canceled a $100 million bond deal between its electric utility and the bank. That took place last fall, when the treasurers of California, Illinois and other entities said they would freeze their dealings with the bank--in some cases, for a one-year period.
[...]In Davis, the city's report [cityofdavis.org][PDF] on the possibility of cutting ties with Wells Fargo noted that Philadelphia and Minneapolis are also considering the same move.
[...]City Council members including [Socialist and Professor of Economics Kshama] Sawant, Mike O'Brien, and Lisa Herbold are interested in contracting with a credit union or state-run public bank. Both of those options, however, would require a change to state law.
Ellen Brown, who ran [ellenbrown.com] for California State Treasurer in 2014 on a state bank platform, has been repeatedly published [google.com] on the topic of states establishing their own version of The Bank of North Dakota which, since its founding in 1913, has a record that makes Wall Street look like amateurs.
