The Consumer Federation of America, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) called on the nation’s insurance firms to stop underwriting oil and gas projects, along with investing in fossil-fuel companies. The groups say backing fossil-fuel companies causes consumers’ insurance premiums to grow annually.
Americans for Financial Reform has been leading on opposition to the FIRM Act. This bill would force bank regulators to specifically disregard one category of significant financial risk – reputational risk – when assessing a bank for safety and soundness. Additionally, the bill would further
AFR shared maps and statistics with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee prior to two hearings this month on the insurance crisis, which is compounded by climate change.
“People place a lot of value, besides economic value, on where they live, and a lot of people don’t have the resources to move anyway,” said Alex Martin, policy director at Climate and Finance at Americans for Financial Reform. “People aren’t able to afford the cost increases that are coming right now. And if they can’t do that, just raising rates continuously will not be a holistic solution.”
NYC Comptroller Brad Lander announced standards by which he will evaluate the net zero plans of the asset managers that oversee the city’s pension assets. He will recommend the boards of trustees of the city’s pensions pursue other asset management options through a bidding process should some of their current asset managers fail to meet those standards.
As communities across the country face increasingly severe and frequent climate disasters, a new guide released today by the Equitable & Just Insurance Initiative offers a slate of actions local and state governments can take to protect renters, homeowners, communities, and insurance policyholders.
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.
Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted a comment to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) on its proposal to evaluate nonbank mortgage lenders in New York based on their performance in meeting the credit needs of the communities where they operate, including needs related to increasing climate risks on housing
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted testimony to the Connecticut General Assembly on a bill that would assess a five percent surcharge on insurers for policies that support fossil fuel infrastructure in the state. The funds collected would then help fund resilience and flood data transparency.
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced its withdrawal from participation in the interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions. The climate principles covered large banks with over $100 billion in assets and were released jointly in 2023 by all three federal bank regulators: the OCC, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).