Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) is among the last of the major banks to limit the loans they'll make available to mining companies who use the practice of removing mountaintops to lessen the cost of extracting minerals.
Some environmentalist made is sound like it was their pressure which caused Wells Fargo and other banks like Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup, Inc (NYSE:C), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) to make similar decisions over the last couple of years, but that's probably far from the truth.
What is more behind this is increasing restrictions from the EPA on mountaintop removal, which makes it less desirable financially to invest in the companies practicing it.
That doesn't mean the banks won't position themselves as being allegedly "environmentally friendly" because of their decisions, but it's more in line with a business decision than the environment.
As more elites and wealthy from the northeast and east coast move into these areas, they're bringing their environmental agendas with them, which is most of the impetus behind the move to reduce and/or eliminate mountaintop mining.
This is just an opportunity for the banks to toot their own horns while in reality making a financial decision.
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