WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development, released the following statement after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency jointly finalized principles to prod banks into defunding fossil fuels in the name of climate change.
“Banks were not created to be arbiters of public policy, but now environmental activists have seized our nation’s financial regulators and are inserting their political preferences into the equation. North Dakota is successfully showing off its innovative clean-energy solutions and has challenged the narrative of most climate activists, without cowering to D.C. bureaucrats. We need to support the innovators, not de-bank them. This guidance sets us backwards and continues to push our banking industry further down the ESG rabbit hole. Energy demand is increasing across the globe. It’s nonsensical and idiotic to tell our financial institutions it would be better for dirty competitors and adversaries to produce what the world needs when we have the cleanest energy here at home.”
Background:
Earlier this year, Senator Cramer introduced the Fair Access to Banking Act, which bars financial institutions from refusing or limiting services to constitutionally-protected industries.
In May, he questioned Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a Senate Banking Committee hearing where he stressed the dangers of regulatory authority and the adverse effects of steering stakeholders toward the adoption of unreliable energy sources. Mr. Powell testified to the Committee that the agency is not looking to be climate policymakers.
Last year, Senator Cramer penned an op-ed in Fox News advising the financial services industry to resist the urge to weigh in on social and cultural issues. He also joined his colleagues in calling out the Biden administration forcing their radical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies onto the American economy in pursuit of their unrealistic environmental agenda.