400 organizations signed a letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris, calling on them to use executive authority to cancel federal student debt immediately. The letter, first sent in November and then again in January, has been updated with more than 70 additional signers.
The AFR Education Fund sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission responding to a request for comment on regulatory options for money market funds in light of the collapse and bailout of many money market funds during the March 2020 coronavirus financial shock. The letter called for strong new regulatory steps to fix incentives that create financial instability for these products. It also questioned whether additional regulation should be extended to other types of fixed-income investment funds beyond money market funds narrowly defined, as there is evidence that these types of fund arrangements can also contribute to financial instability.
A group of 24 groups today called on President Biden to nominate jurists to the federal courts who reflect a commitment to professional diversity and to reach beyond the large legal firms that often furnish many judicial nominees.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund joined 64 groups in writing a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Powell to take bold and timely action on climate change, in line with the US commitment to the Paris Agreement. The letter asks him to use the Fed’s
“The FSOC and Treasury must pivot from this meeting and push lagging regulators to turn today’s words on climate into bold and timely action. At its next meeting, the FSOC should take the concrete steps we recommend in the Climate Roadmap. There’s still time to act, but no more time to delay.”
— Alex Martin, Senior Policy Analyst, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund
In the wake of market volatility stemming from Archegos Capital, AFR wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), urging action to improve transparency with enhanced 13F disclosures and investigate any regulatory gaps created by the registration exemption for large family offices. You can find
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen released the “Climate Roadmap for U.S. Financial Regulation” to guide the new administration to mitigate climate financial risk and decrease the financial sector’s contribution to the climate crisis.
In the discourse surrounding student debt cancellation, some pundits and lawmakers have consistently missed the mark on the benefits this policy will bring. Too many have ignored the very serious ways that student debt is a disproportionate burden on women borrowers, and Black women with student debt in particular.
The “Climate Roadmap for U.S. Financial Regulation,” from Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen, outlines how Biden appointees can protect investors, workers, and the economy from the escalating risks caused by the climate crisis, while also shifting the regulatory framework towards one that promotes the transition to a low-carbon future.
“The nonprofits Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform have released an early copy of their new “roadmap” for climate-finance reform to The Weekly Planet. It’s a guide to what the new executive branch might do to shift the flows of capital toward greener investments.”
“Not that this will be easy. Yesterday, Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to the San Francisco Fed implying that it should stop researching “climate economics,” labeling the topic “bitterly partisan.” He’s not wrong—climate change is bitterly partisan. But all of the country’s largest banks have issued climate policies nevertheless. And if it is partisan, that is because partisans fought greenhouse-gas regulation for so long that climate change has become a costly and whole-of-society issue. The financial system is where those costs come to roost. Any big problem, ignored for long enough, becomes a financial issue.”