Federal Reserve bows to Big Oil

WASHINGTON – This morning the Federal Reserve announced changes to the so-called Main Street Lending Facility, a $600 billion program established with money from the stimulus.

The new changes explicitly allow recipients to use loans from this program to refinance existing debt — a demand that Senator Cruz specifically made to the Fed on behalf of the oil and gas industry last week, and which reflects another recent request from the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Friends of the Earth senior policy analyst Lukas Ross issued the following response:

These changes directly reflect demands from polluters and their favorite members of Congress. Long before the coronavirus, the drillers were in deep trouble. Now frackers want to pay back their debts with our money. Trump’s Big Oil bailout must be stopped.

Expert contact: Lukas Ross, (202) 222-0724, [email protected]
Communications contact: Erin Jensen, (202) 222-0722, [email protected]