The group wearing t-shirts reading “Earth Quaker Action Team” stood before the entrance of the PNC Bank branch at the US Steel Tower to protest the financial institution’s financing of both practices.
The estimated hundreds of environmentalists were calling for renewable energy use, and were part of a larger group attending the Power Shift national conference in the Steel City that reportedly offered training for young people on how to fight coal mining, oil and gas fraccing and climate change.
The four-day event was being held this week at a downtown venue and has since adjourned.
It is not the first time Earth Quaker has made its way to Pittsburgh to speak for its causes.
In April, the group descended upon a PNC Bank shareholder meeting, forcing the company’s CEO to adjourn the gathering.
Coal supporters, according to local news station WPXI, also were on hand to have their voices heard at Monday’s rally. A counter-protest by labour union the Boilermakers Local 154 met the activists at one end of the well-known Roberto Clemente Bridge, holding signs with “Stop the War on Coal”
A Consol Energy river barge also hung giant banners from its structure supporting coal and its tie to American jobs.
A Pittsburgh Police spokeswoman told the station seven protesters had been arrested, but did not elaborate on the charges.
According to PNC Bank’s responsibility report from last year, the bank did not extend credit to “individual MTR mining projects or to a coal producer that receives a majority of its production from MTR mining”
However, the group has called the institution’s policy “bogus”, claiming no producer receives a majority of its production from mountaintop mining.
It also argues that the large Pittsburgh-headquartered bank maintains “exposure” to more than 43% of Appalachian MTR mining.
PNC did not release public statement on the rally.
A Consol official said it sponsored the barge’s appearance to make sure its voice was heard.
New standards from the Environmental Protection Agency, Consol government affairs vice president Tommy Johnson said, “really galvanised our efforts to make sure that events like this do not unduly drive public opinion and therefore public policy”
