FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oct. 30, 2024 CONTACT Carter Dougherty, carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org Labor Pushes for Limits on Asset Manager Influence Over U.S. Banks Investors, advocates join union efforts to boost oversight of Wall Street behemoths Washington, D.C. – Today, 38 labor unions, investors, and advocates submitted a
AFR sent a letter opposing H.R. 3556 “Increasing Financial Regulatory Accountability and Transparency Act,” a bill supposedly to make the Fed more transparent, which will instead hamstring the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (“FSOC”) ability to effectively monitor risk in the financial system. This bill would subject the FSOC’s designation authority to Congressional review, which would allow any firm the FSOC designates as systemically important to lobby Congress to rescind the FSOC’s designation. This would render the FSOC designation authority under the Dodd-Frank Act futile and unnecessarily politicize the agency’s efforts to monitor companies that pose an outsized risk to our financial system. This bill comes at the heels of the FSOC’s announcement to reinvigorate its designation process, a welcome step in preventing the next financial crisis.
Regulators should move promptly following the repeal of Trump-era guidance that hamstrung the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to research, identify and designate potential new systemic risks, according to Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should prioritize repealing the 2019 Trump-era guidance that prevents federal regulators from properly policing institutions whose collapse would imperil the financial system.
AFREF and 30 allies sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging her to prioritize restoring FSOC’s ability to fully execute its authority under Dodd-Frank by repealing the SIFI 2019 guidance; developing a data strategy for OFR; and using the statutory authority given in Title I of Dodd-Frank to apply a racial equity lens when designating a non-bank financial company as a SIFI.
AFREF led a letter urging the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) as the coordinating body for several regulatory agencies to imminently take action against the various misdeeds that may be conducted by the issuers of stablecoins. The letter explains that such urgency cannot be overstated given how quickly the market continues to grow, posing greater threats to the broader financial system.
The Sierra Club, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, and Public Citizen released an analysis of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) report on climate-related financial risk. The analysis outlines the report’s disappointing lack of urgency and details the missed opportunities to chart a comprehensive course
The U.S. Treasury Department released its climate finance report on Thursday evening following a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) where members voted to approve the report. Though strong in some areas like climate risk disclosure and scenario analysis, the report largely highlights agency actions that are already underway, and it fails to lay out a comprehensive roadmap with specific recommendations and timelines for regulators to consider beyond the assessment and disclosure of climate risk, Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and Public Citizen said.
Public Citizen, Sierra Club, 350.org, Americans for Financial Reform, Evergreen Action, and Action Center on Race and the Economy today delivered more than 40,000 petition signatures to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding that an upcoming report highlight the gravity of climate threats to our financial system and identify concrete steps that financial regulators should take to address them.
Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) released detailed policy recommendations today to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for its forthcoming report on climate-related financial risk.