Bailout oversight problems, fossil fuel industry in turmoil, and other news from around the web

Federal watchdogs are asking lawmakers for help after Trump administration legal rulings appeared to sharply limit their ability to monitor more than $1 trillion in coronavirus relief programs — including huge payouts to protect businesses threatened by the pandemic.

Extraction Oil & Gas Inc.,loaded with $1.7 billion in long-term debt, has become the latest oil-and-gas drilling company to file for bankruptcy after handing out retention bonuses to top management and putting creditors in position to take over the business.

Banks are slashing credit lines to shale drillers, as an oil-price crash and wells that have failed to produce as much as predicted force a painful reassessment of companies’ assets.

The cuts vary from company to company, but Moody’s Corp. and JP Morgan Chase & Co. forecast a total reduction of as much as 30% to the asset-backed loans, or tens of billions of dollars. At current prices, that will be enough to tip some weaker players into bankruptcy as capital for the beleaguered industry dries up, say bankers, lawyers and energy executives.

BP PLC is writing down as much as $17.5 billion of its assets and might leave some of its oil and gas in the ground because of lower energy prices and weakened demand amid the global crisis caused by the novel coronavirus.

Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK.N) is preparing to file for bankruptcy as soon as this week, said three people familiar with the matter, becoming the largest oil and gas producer to unravel after an energy market rout caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve said Monday that it will begin purchasing corporate bonds as part of a previously announced plan to ensure companies can borrow through the bond market during the pandemic.

The program will purchase existing bonds on the open market, as opposed to newly issued debt. The central bank said will seek to build a “broad and diversified” portfolio that will mimic a bond-market index. The bonds will have to be from highly rated, investment-grade companies, or ones that fit that description before the viral outbreak struck.

"We’ve done economic stabilization with CARES [Act], but this next package I view as more as 'all right, how do we deal with the economic recovery?' And so we need to be looking at jobs. We need to look at where we have lost those jobs and how we can work to regain or to breathe some light into these and we absolutely have opportunities when it comes to the clean energy space."

During the 2008-09 financial crisis, about 15% of the stimulus money injected into the global economy went to green initiatives. Earlier this month, Germany committed 130 billion euros ($145 billion) to pandemic recovery, with about 30% to be spent on activities that will cut emissions. What changed?

One simple answer is that we are learning from past mistakes.

The black swan event of a pandemic amid an oil glut has failed to railroad a sustainability movement that's gripped investors, oil companies and nongovernmental organizations.

But is "ESG" key to the energy transition or green washing?

ESG is short for environmental, social and governance, three areas increasingly weighed in investments, lending and corporate decisionmaking. On the ground, the movement has helped fuel protests against banks funding fossil fuel projects, oil companies announcing zero-emission targets and changes to influential mutual fund ratings.