An article published by Climate Wire on August 24, 2020, highlights corporate watchdog Bharat Ramamurti’s criticism of the Fed’s “Main Street Lending Program.” Ramamurti accuses the central bank of tweaking the program’s parameters and “expanding loan eligibility to accommodate struggling oil and gas companies,” pointing to their decision to increase the maximum loan amount, to allow firms to use the new loans to pay off existing debt, and to remove certain eligibility constraints. These changes, which “opened the Main Street program” to “oil and gas producers that were heavily indebted and grappling with collapsing energy demand,” mirrored requests made by fossil fuel companies and lobbyists.
Lee Reiners of the Climate Risk Disclosure Lab was quoted, saying that “the attention that Ramamurti gave the oil and gas sector is critical to an analysis of federal support for volatile commodity markets that contribute to climate change.”
The article is available here.
Economics Department