[Editor’s Note: Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, thinks condemnation of your land should be allowed to enable corporatists such as himself to grift off global warming schemes.]
We’ve often written about “permitting reform” needed to build new pipeline projects and finish existing projects like the stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline. Last year U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat, WV) tried and failed to get permitting reform passed (see Manchin’s “Save MVP” Permitting Reform Dies (Again) in Senate Vote). In February of this year, Republicans in the House said they would try their hand to get it done (see House Republicans Tackle “Permitting Reform” – Help Save MVP?).
Long lead times for new projects not only block new pipelines, but also solar and wind projects. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, shared his solution as part of a letter to shareholders. Dimon thinks the government and corporations should just seize private property using eminent domain to get these projects built now. Because, you know, global warming justifies it.
Dimon said in his letter that “governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations” may need to invoke “eminent domain” in order to get the “adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”
Fox News brings us the news (emphasis added):
In his annual letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested that the U.S. government and climate conscious corporations may have to seize citizen’s private property to enact climate initiatives while there still time to stave off climate disasters.
Dimon declared Tuesday that “governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations” may need to invoke “eminent domain” in order to get the “adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”
“Eminent domain” is a legal term that describes the government using its power to expropriate private property for public use, provided the government provides private owners proper compensation.
In his letter, which touted the successes of the financial services company in 2022 as well as providing shareholders a vision for its future, Dimon made the case that it might be time to justify eminent domain in America to ease the climate crisis. According to the CEO, such drastic measures may be employed because time is short.
“The window for action to avert the costliest impacts of global climate change is closing,” he said, along with mentioning his concern that the “ongoing war in Ukraine is roiling trade relations across Europe and Asia and redefining the way countries and companies plan for energy security.”
“The need to provide energy affordably and reliably for today, as well as make the necessary investments to decarbonize for tomorrow, underscores the inextricable links between economic growth, energy security and climate change. We need to do more, and we need to do so immediately,” Dimon added.
He then mentioned that “governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations need to align” on policies to expedite climate solutions. Dimon added, “Massive global investment in clean energy technologies must be done and must continue to grow year-over-year.”
He floated eminent domain as one of these policies that could speed up building green infrastructure.
“At the same time, permitting reforms are desperately needed to allow investment to be done in any kind of timely way. We may even need to evoke [sic] eminent domain,” Dimon stated.
The CEO justified this potential government and corporate seizure of public property, saying that “we simply are not getting the adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”
Dimon concluded his letter’s statement on climate change, saying, “Polarization, paralysis and basic lack of analysis cannot keep us from addressing one of the most complex challenges of our time. Diverse stakeholders need to come together, seeking the best answers through engagement around our common interest.”*
We created a PDF of Dimon’s letter to shareholders (which is only published on a web page on the JPMorgan website). The letter turns out to be 55 pages! Read it here.
Editor’s Note: Dimon’s letter is essentially a self-congratulatory puff piece on his own company, with one meaningless shovel of BS after another. I was struck by the following two excerpts:
We need large, complex banks to continue to play a critical role in the U.S. and global financial system. And we need to recognize that they do so in a way regional banks can’t. Large banks are complex not because they want to be, but because they operate in complex global markets. Regional banks simply cannot manage the scale and complexity of transactions in 50 or 60 countries around the world to help some of America’s best and largest companies accomplish their goals. Think of equity, debt, M&A, research, swaps, foreign exchange, large payments systems, global custody and so on. It takes a global workforce with deep expertise and significant capabilities to provide these services. These large global banks finance not just the world’s largest companies but the world’s development institutions and even countries. Having some of the best large, complex banks in the world is essential to the success of America’s biggest companies, its economic system and its global competitiveness, which says nothing against the importance of having great midsized and community banks as well. And contrary to what some say – to be safe, a global bank needs both huge economies of scale and the strength of diversified earnings streams…
The United States has essentially never had an “industrial policy,” a strategy by which the federal government, through incentives and policies, drives American industry. We have done it indirectly through things like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA’s moon mission but not generally by favoring industries. More directly, the IRA and the CHIPS Act provide specific incentives for EVs, semiconductors, rare earths, alternative energy sources and others. There are two reasons we should develop an industrial policy: 1) specifically to safeguard our national security and 2) to counter unfair economic competition, particularly where our national security is directly concerned. For example, making bicycles would not be part of the second example. But China, using subsidies and its economic muscle to dominate batteries, rare earths, semiconductors or EVs, could eventually imperil national security by disrupting our access to these products and materials. We cannot cede these important resources and capabilities to another country.
