We push for rules to build resilience and enable a just and equitable transition. Requiring regulators, financial institutions, and other corporations to reckon with the costs of climate change is an important part of the puzzle.
The rising costs and decreased availability of insurance as a result of increasingly severe climate change-driven disasters, coupled with inadequate insurance regulation, is a growing crisis contributing to housing unaffordability. We are bringing people together to develop and demand community-led solutions that advance climate, housing, and racial justice.
Advocacy
Resources
Blog
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Blog: On Community Development, Bank Regulators Are Stuck in 1995
Banking has changed a lot since 1977, but CRA regulations have not been meaningfully updated in three decades. In 2023, the banking regulators modernized the old brick and mortar banking rules for the modern era and strengthened CRA performance evaluations. Under new Trump-appointed leadership, regulators are now inexplicably walking away from these improvements.
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Press Releases
Press Release: Regulators Cave to Banking Industry and Climate Deniers and Rescind Critical Evaluation of Climate Financial Risks
Last week, the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “banking regulators”) rescinded the Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions.
AFR In the News
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Jacobin: Private Flood Insurers Are Capitalizing on the Shutdown
In a recent letter urging Congress to reform the federal flood insurance program, Americans for Financial Reform and ten other organizations called for an investment of $15 billion to $20 billion to update and expand federal flood maps.
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Green Central Banking: US retreat from climate regulation could put economy under stress, experts say
“It’s easier to make an ideologically driven decision, to ignore the problem as it’s growing and manifesting, if you don’t have the expertise in the room,” said Alex Martin, policy director of climate finance at Americans for Financial Reform.
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LittleSis: Crypto, Fossil Fuels, Private Prisons Push for Banking Deregulation
As watchdog groups like Americans for Financial Reform have noted, though, industries that complain about being “debanked,” like cryptocurrency, were never systematically cut off from banks, though regulation increased after the 2022 crypto crash. When these industries did face difficulties getting access to banking services, it was more due to “banks appropriately consider[ing] the risks…
