Big oil and gas benefit from small business bailout funding

“The PPP was supposed to help small businesses keep their doors open and their employees on payroll through the pandemic.”

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Over 62% of mining, oil, and gas corporations have received roughly $4.5 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds since the start of the pandemic. These BIG corporations were able to do so though Trump’s Small Business Administration (SBA).

This relief fund was approved specifically for small business but since its inception, the number of corporations allowed in this sector has nearly doubled. Western Values Project found that 34% of the sector has used $3.9 billion from the program. 

“The PPP was supposed to help small businesses keep their doors open and their employees on payroll through the pandemic. While more than 100,000 of those small businesses have shuttered, the Trump administration has bailed out Big Oil and polluting corporations – many of which have long track records of environmental violations or worse and are compensating their CEOs millions of dollars,” says the news analysis spokesperson Jayson O’Neill. 

According to Common Dreams, a former member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve’s recent opinion piece published in the New York Times openly questioned the Trump administration’s insistence on bailing out Big Oil, coal, and other polluting industries.  

While experts advise focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and focusing on greener alternatives, the Trump administration is doing the exact opposite and handing out billions in bailouts to these polluting corporations, giving them tax cuts, loosening regulations for them, and providing them with low-interest loans.

The new analysis, by Accountable.US, has found billion-dollar corporations and other large corporations have received financial assistance via the CARES Act. 

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