SARASOTA, FL On the morning of March 20th, 2009 a small crew of Mountain Justice and Earth First! activists from Florida and Appalachia disrupted the lobby of the Bank of America branch in downtown Sarasota Florida to protest BoA's continued funding of mountaintop removal coal mining and the construction of new coal-fired power plants despite recent claims of environmental concern. While several folks distributed informational hand-outs about BoA's investments in coal to tellers and account-holders, one individual played bluegrass banjo to celebrate the culture of the Appalachian region that BoA's investments so threaten. The activists' signs read 'Bank of America: still funding coal, killing communities.'

Last fall BoA made an announcement that the institution would "phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal." Unfortunately this "commitment" does nothing to address coal's role as the chief cause of climate change and it does little to mitigate the impacs of Mountain-top Removal (MTR) as most companies practicing MTR still employ deep-mining techniques to recover a large percentage of coal as well. While Bank of America's empty lip-service might satisfy some so-called "big green" organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council, a number of grassroots groups across the country are continuing a campaign of direct action to pressure the bank to cease all funding for coal.

The action lasted about five minutes altogether before protestors were kicked out by security. This is the latest in a series of bluegrass at the bank actions that have occured throughout the southeast over the course of the past year. Short, sweet, disruptive actions like this one are easy to execute and are a great way to deliver the message that we mean business directly to the Bank of America establishment. To plug into the campaign, folks should visit www.mountainjustice.org, www.risingtidenorthamerica.org and www.dirtymoney.org