FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Eleanor Eagan, [email protected]
Today, the Revolving Door Project released a report on the Office of Financial Research’s (OFR) capacity to proactively investigate and inform climate-aware regulation across the federal financial regulatory landscape. This is the fourth installment of RDP’s Climate Finance Capacity project, which examines the current state of financial regulation through the lens of the climate crisis. Prior installments have looked at the role and capacity of the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in crafting a more sustainable financial future.
The OFR was established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in 2010 and charged with providing data, analysis, and research regarding systemic financial risks to the members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). While not itself a regulatory body, OFR investigates systemic risks, standardizes the data used across government, and offers regulators a more robust empirical base from which to devise their regulations. OFR’s work informs regulators of the far-flung risks that exist across the financial industry, allowing regulators to better regulate against potential financial crashes.
The OFR can help clarify that climate change represents a systemic risk, standardize the climate-finance data used across government, and form the empirical base for a coordinated regulatory climate response. OFR is a critical partner in the crafting of competent climate regulation precisely because climate regulations vary widely across government and climate remains dangerously misunderstood (and underappreciated) by regulators.
Despite the incredible potential of the OFR’s work, the agency has been continuously attacked since its inception. The financial industry and its allies on Capitol Hill have denigrated OFR as unnecessary and repetitive in attempts to protect the industry’s dangerous profiteering behaviors from oversight and regulation. These attacks have been largely successful, effectively decimating the office’s staff, funding, and productivity levels. To combat these attacks, and to stabilize our collective financial future, the Biden administration must fully invest in the OFR through terminating far-right Trump-appointed Director Dino Falaschetti, restoring the agency’s resources, and institutionalizing its independence from Treasury and other FSOC agencies.
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Photo: “Climate Emergency – PeoplesClimate-Melb-IMG_8280” by John Englart (Takver)