The Biden administration is using financial regulation as a weapon to incorporate its “woke” climate change agenda into banking decisions, according to a top GOP lawmaker.
Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky predicted that Democrats’ efforts to pass a Green New Deal to move investors away from fossil fuel energy would fail outside of Congress, despite their majorities in both chambers, because voters won’t accept such radical environmental policy.
“I think [they] recognize that the American people won’t tolerate those kinds of big government solutions that are so transparently attacking their access to affordable, reliable energy,” Barr told the Washington Examiner on the Plugged In podcast.
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As the fight for climate change has shifted to financial regulators, Barr said it’s important to understand the actual role of agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve.
“The job of bank regulators is to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and promote financial stability,” he said, adding that it doesn’t include assessing climate change risks.
Instead, he claims President Joe Biden wants to expand the role of these regulators in an attempt to apply “cancel culture” to finance and redirect capital away from fossil energy.
“The central irony of the Biden administration’s climate fiance agenda is that it will neither promote financial stability nor help the environment. On the contrary, I believe it’ll actually destabilize the economy,” Barr said.
“This is really not about assessing risks to the financial system. That’s just window dressing. That’s just empty, hollow rhetoric from Biden regulators,” he added.
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Barr said lending decisions should not depend on whether a business or investor conforms to the “politically correct standards of the day” or “the woke opinions of a select few.”
But the Kentucky Republican, who’d likely become chairman of at least one subcommittee within the Committee on Financial Services under a GOP majority, teased legislation to increase oversight of financial regulators if Republicans reclaim the House in November.
“I think oversight is obviously the tool we need. We need to have the gavels to hold these regulators accountable,” he said.
The Plugged In podcast, hosted by former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee, brings on key players, from lawmakers to federal employees to industry experts, to keep our audience up to speed on the latest energy issues facing the country and the planet.
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