Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund led and submitted a letter to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) on the agency’s draft 2025-2026 budget. It urges NCUA to appropriately dedicate funding to support credit unions on climate-related financial risk mitigation, climate resilience, and providing safe, equitable green lending for their members. The letter was endorsed by Environmental Defense Fund, Green America, National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, and the Greenlining Institute.
The letter recommends the NCUA:
- Swiftly hire the proposed climate financial risk officer and add capacity for climate resilience staff
- Clarify the role of climate change in the NCUA’s 2025 supervisory priorities letter
- Publish a climate risk & resilience toolkit for credit unions
- Update the 2006 disaster preparedness risk alert
- Develop climate-related financial risk guidance
- Organize examiner training on climate-related financial risk mitigation and green lending
- Collaborate on transition plans and climate scenario analysis for the largest credit unions
To effectively accomplish those items, the NCUA should tailor its approach to climate-related financial risks and opportunities based on credit union size and capacity, and should also recognize that credit unions have expertise and local knowledge of the needs and risks within their own communities and act in partnership with them.