“Ethical Markets expects the incoming Biden Team to overrule this regressive rule rushed into its protocol at the Comptroller of the Currency!
One more last minute attempt by Trump to slow climate risk disclosure. Meanwhile the global transition to the cleaner, knowledge-richer, more equitable greener economies of the solar age continues.
~Hazel Henderson, Editor“
An Obscure Agency, a Big Rule Change and Huge Consequences for Climate Action
By Leon Kaye
An obscure agency within the U.S. Treasury Department recently proposed a rule that could have serious consequences for climate action, and Ceres is speaking out.
JAN 05, 2021
It’s an old federal agency, dating back to the Abraham Lincoln administration. It’s relatively small, too, by federal government standards — at last count it only has 3,500 employees. But the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which is tasked with ensuring the security of the U.S. banking sector, recently proposed a rule that could have long-term consequences for climate action.
One organization, the sustainability advocacy group Ceres, isn’t having it.
Fair access or an unfair imposition on the private sector?
The controversy is over a rule the OCC proposed back in November. Stating that its goal is to secure “fair access to financial services,” the rule would prohibit banks from deciding not to fund certain industries or projects. The public comment period ended yesterday, Jan. 4 — and if the rule moves forward, banks declining to loan funds for oil and gas projects would have to backtrack.
As the clock ticks on the Trump administration, which despite the expected shenanigans in Congress tomorrow will sunset on Jan. 20, the OCC’s proposed rule is yet another example of the Trump White House kicking in as many doors as possible as it’s shown the exit. And as more stakeholder groups pressure the banking sector to divest or stop funding fossil fuel projects, it’s clear this is one more example of how the current administration is doing whatever it can to leave its imprint on federal policy.
While the OCC denies conservative politics are behind this proposed rule change, saying there have also been calls to “de-bank” organizations like Planned Parenthood, independent ATM operators and agricultural companies, it’s clear the effects of the Barack Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point helped sway the OCC toward suggesting this rule change. Critics of that policy — which the Obama White House designed to limit access to funding by the likes of gun retailers and payday lenders in order to stop predatory and deceptive businesses from continuing their operations — accused the program of overreach, saying it denied banking services to legitimate companies.
Supporters of Operation Choke Point say the reversal would force banks to do business with companies to which their stakeholders — including customers — would object, opening a can of governance worms.