In a letter addressed to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, a coalition of 97 unions, civil rights, financial, and environmental groups declared their support for Dr. Lisa Cook, Dr. Philip Jefferson, and Sarah Bloom Raskin, all nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
The nomination of the highly qualified Sarah Bloom Raskin, Lisa Cook, and Philip Jefferson to the Fed is a very welcome step forward towards a better-regulated Wall Street. The Fed needs to steer a new course that begins with a reversal of the deregulation of the Trump era. This work must continue with pro-active regulation and supervision of Wall Street.
Acting Comptroller Michael Hsu announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) plans to develop climate risk supervisory expectations for large banks and issue guidance for comment by the end of the year. Over the past year, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and partners have urged the OCC and other banking regulators to take this important initial step immediately. We applaud Acting Comptroller Hsu for his leadership on this issue and we urge the other regulators to follow suit and issue guidance by the end of the year.
Americans for Financial Reform and allies today rallied in front of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to highlight Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s failure to protect the U.S. economy from major systemic threats like climate change, racial and economic inequality, excessive risk-taking from the big banks, and private equity firms extracting wealth from communities and workers across the nation.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and partners Public Citizen, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Center for American Progress released a white paper outlining the key elements that federal bank regulators—including the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration—can and should incorporate into public supervisory guidance for banks on assessing and addressing the risks faced by banks from climate change.
Dear President Biden,
We are deeply concerned by the lack of progress being made by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (the Fed) on the assessment and mitigation of climate risk in the financial system. The Fed has failed to take proactive measures to address the risks that banks and the financial system face from climate change. This must change.
Reappointing Mr. Powell “would be disappointing” for those who care about Mr. Biden’s agenda to address financial regulation, climate change and racial wealth gaps, said Erik Gerding, a senior fellow at Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit that argues for tougher financial regulation. “Having Jerome Powell continue would just mean one less vote for sustained and healthy regulation of the banking system.”
Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell has presided over a broad deregulatory agenda that has made our financial system less resilient and driven rising wealth and income inequality.
AFREF submitted a comment to the Federal Reserve on its “Proposed Guidelines for Evaluating Account and Service Requests” urging the Federal Reserve to limit access to its payments systems to well-regulated and well-supervised depository institutions to safeguard rules that protect consumers, ensure the stability of the payments system, and require community reinvestment.
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