Biden promised not to finance fossil fuels. So why is the US backing a huge gas project?
Biden promised not to finance fossil fuels. So why is the US backing a huge gas project?
The Export-Import Bank is guaranteeing loans for natural gas development in Bahrain.
Because fuck you thats why. Would you rather eat a neolib shit sandwich with cheese or a fascist shit sandwich plain?
Funny you should say "shit sandwich" -- I had this conversation a little while ago with some of y'all and no one could really attack Biden's record coherently. It's just the "say vaguely bad-sounding things about him over and over from a variety of accounts" strategy, with no effort at backing it up with more than the same handful of like 5-6 anecdotes about some bad thing that happened under his watch.
Like I said there, I actually didn't really realize how much good stuff Biden had done or how hard it was to come up with factual criticism of him, until y'all started attacking him unfairly and I started spending time looking up what he's been up to. I only started on it to see whether you were telling the truth about it.
He completely flipped on immigration. He left Trump era policies in place and made them worse.
He shut down the biggest union action in the last decade.
He's sending weapons to a genocidal regime.
His idea of economic problems is shrinkflation. While grocery stores and land lords have a third of the country over the barrel.
I can keep going. Should I keep going? Should I talk about the continuation of Trump's trade war with China? The protectionist legislation he championed so auto manufacturers can keep prices up and quality down?
If anyone actually cares about holding Biden accountable, you can follow along here:
Genuine question for you, what good stuff has Biden done for you? My life is worse now in almost every way than it was pre-COVID and nothing in Biden's track record shows that he plans on reversing that for me.
Biden, like Trump, is a garbage neolib whose biggest accomplishments are funneling more public dollars to the 1% via ridiculous, inefficient contracts, who, unlike Trump, just so happens to not want to kill gay people. The billionaire class is the single greatest threat to Americans and he's done nothing tangible to address or solve that problem.
I see it all over lemmy where a few, usually new or very young accounts, will pile on me making the same arguments. My favorite one right now is that ‘Biden has done nothing to get marijuana rescheduled’ to which I point to the fact that the decision is currently sitting with the DEA, the group that decides what is in the schedule and where. The response? ‘It’s not done yet so Biden hasn’t done anything’. And because I, a rando on the internet, can’t clairvoyantly say when it will be rescheduled, then it’s not real.
It’s such an asinine argument and I got piled by several accounts with it telling me it’s probably the same chud trying to increase their influence by making it seem like people agree with them.
Sooo... the Export-Import bank is part of the Biden administration?
No?
"EXIM is an independent Executive Branch agency with a mission of supporting American jobs by facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services. When private sector lenders are unable or unwilling to provide financing, EXIM fills in the gap for American businesses by equipping them with the financing tools necessary to compete for global sales."
Well, clearly they're doing it on behalf of Biden then...
No?
"As an independent federal agency, EXIM contributes to U.S. economic growth by supporting tens of thousands of jobs in exporting businesses and their supply chains across the United States. Since 1992, EXIM has generated more than $9 billion for the U.S. Treasury for repayment of U.S. debt."
Then what does this have to do with Biden?
Unsurprisingly, crickets.
Consider the enabling of disinformation that is going on here, (as if you weren't already.)Seems like a plausible deniabilty thing
This direct contradiction of clearly articulated administration policy is possible because of the bank’s nominal independence. It makes its own decisions and evaluates its own deals—it’s supposed to conduct transactions that support the American economy, free from political interference.
In practice, however, the administration has quite a bit of sway over the bank and its priorities. The president appoints the director and the governing board, with the approval of the Senate. Currently, the bank’s president and chair is Reta Jo Lewis, a longtime Democratic operative and reliable Biden ally who worked in the Clinton and Obama White Houses. Publicly, the Biden administration has sent signals recently that it is not happy with its own bank. Last years, when the bank approved a loan to expand an oil project in Indonesia, a spokesperson for Biden’s National Security Council told Bloomberg News that ExIm had “made an independent decision to approve the loan under its authorities and its decision does not reflect administration policy.” While the statement was a notable shot across the bow from one part of the Biden administration to another, it also was not accompanied by any further action.
For critics, the recently approved Bahrain project is an excruciating example of the bank’s refusal to adhere to the administration’s stated policies on financing fossil fuel projects. Defenders of the bank will point out that the administration’s promise in Glasgow was just that—a promise, not a law. The bank has defended its oil and gas investments, pointing to the law that prohibits it from discriminating against projects based on industry.
Natural gas is just dinosaur farts so it cool
This direct contradiction of clearly articulated administration policy is possible because because of the bank’s nominal independence. It makes its own decisions and evaluates its own deals—it’s supposed to conduct transactions that support the American economy, free from political interference.
I see you have taken to heart my advice about making more subtle and "what? it's technically true"-defensible postings, that through the phrasing of their headline still feed the narrative that Biden's bad for the climate even though he pushed through a climate bill that's predicted to reduce US emissions by 40% in the next 6 years, and this particular financing deal is only tangentially related to him. (In the article it says the bank is actually forbidden by law from choosing deals to finance or not based on which industry they relate to.)
Vote for Biden. Seriously. I don't care. Just know what you're voting for.
Thank you! yours is a noble crusade keeping up with these jokers. I’ve also notice there are 3 bad-actor posters, and coincidentally every comment of descent gets their 3 downvotes.
It's a few more than 3 🙂
Pro tip, votes on Lemmy (or any federated app) are not at all private