Environment

FANG Collective disrupts Morgan Stanley event at Brown University

Morgan Stanley is a powerful financial services firm and one of the key financial backers off the Bayou Bridge Pipeline currently being resisted in Louisiana. On Tuesday evening Morgan Stanley was in Rhode Island, at the Brown Faculty Club on Magee St in Providence recruiting Freshmen and Sophmore Brown University students at the “2018 Brown Summer Analyst Firmwide Presentation.” Here’s

Rhode Island News: FANG Collective disrupts Morgan Stanley event at Brown University

February 28, 2018, 12:20 am

By Steve Ahlquist

Morgan Stanley is a powerful financial services firm and one of the key financial backers off the Bayou Bridge Pipeline currently being resisted in Louisiana. On Tuesday evening Morgan Stanley was in Rhode Island, at the Brown Faculty Club on Magee St in Providence recruiting Freshmen and Sophmore Brown University students at the “2018 Brown Summer Analyst Firmwide Presentation.”

Here’s the event description:

“Morgan Stanley believes capital has the power to create positive change in the world. The biggest and most impactful changes come from people like you. If you come to Morgan Stanley, what will you create?

“We invite Freshman and Sophomore Brown University students from all majors to come learn more about how you can put your talent and ambition to work and be part of a team that creates positive change. Join us.”

Inside the Huttner Room of the Brown Faculty Cub there was a man at a podium and a room full of Brown students listening, when members of the FANG Collective entered the room. You can see the video here.

“Hello everyone. We’re from the FANG Collective. We just want to make an announcement regarding Morgan Stanley’s investments.

“If we can just have a little bit of your time.

“Morgan Stanley is the eighth largest shareholder of Energy Transfer Partners and the largest shareholder of it’s parent company, Energy Transfer Equity. In total Morgan Stanley holds over $1.2 billion in Energy Transfer Partners and Energy Transfer Equity, and has loaned money to both companies.

“Since they pride themselves on their sustainability efforts, in 2015 Morgan Stanley agreed to stop financing…

At this point a woman attempted to stop FANG’s interruption, but the man at the podium indicated that FANG should be allowed to proceed.

“…coal mining projects. Yet they still finance one of the most reckless fossil fuel companies in the world, Energy Transfer Partner, or ETP.

“ETP, the very same company behind the notorious Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, is trying to build a 162-mile crude oil pipeline across Louisiana, called the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. BBP will pollute water, crossing and outstanding 700 bodies of water, including Bayou Lafourche, a critical reservoir that supplies the United Houma Nation and 300,000 Louisiana residents with clean, safe drinking water.

The Bayou Bridge Pipeline is the final stage of ETP’s final plan to bring fracked oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota to export facilities in Louisiana.

The pipeline’s construction is happening now, but frontline communities are resisting. This resistance is being led by the L’eau Est La Vie Camp.

Despite an injunction by a Federal Judge, ETP is continuing construction of the pipeline. ETP is the company that built DAPL and used violence against people water protectors. During the height of the Standing Rock resistance, Morgan Stanley lent hundreds of millions of dollars to ETP.

“Morgan Stanley says that they believe that capital can be used to create change.

“It’s time to put those words into action and divest from ETP.

“Alright, so…” said the man at the podium as the first FANG member stepped away allowing a second FANG member to step up.

“These are the indigenous territories that the pipeline is going through….

“Ma’am,” said the man at the podium, exasperated now. “I’ve been very polite, have I not?”

“…the Houma territory, the Chitimacha territory, the Choctow territory…” continued the FANG member, eventually listing all the communities affected by the pipeline’s construction.

Then the FANG Collective left the room, chanting “Stop ETP! No Bayou Bridge!”

The entire disruption took less than three minutes from start to finish.

Here’s a pic of the event page.