Barr Delivers Opening Remarks at Hearing to Examine How the Biden Administration is Ceding Authority Over American Financial Regulation
Washington,
November 7, 2023 -
Today, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy, led by Chairman Andy Barr (KY-06), is holding a hearing entitled “The Tangled Web of Global Governance: How the Biden Administration is Ceding Authority Over American Financial Regulation.”
Watch Chairman Barr’s opening remarks here.
Read Chairman Barr’s opening remarks as prepared for delivery:
“Today’s hearing considers the recent onslaught of banking regulatory proposals, including the Basel III Endgame proposal from Democrat-appointed officials to massively raise capital requirements on an already well-capitalized system.
“That proposal stems from recommendations made in opaque meetings of the global governance body called the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
“To increase transparency within the Basel Committee, Chairman McHenry and I sent a letter to the GAO requesting more information and a report on the federal banking agencies' role of the development of international standards for Basel III Endgame.
“That report will be just the start in exposing international governance groups’ activist pursuits across the global economic system and the control over U.S. regulatory frameworks by unelected bureaucrats.
“The Basel Committee is tied to the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, and is part of an ever-growing tangled web of global governance bodies.
“Along with the Basel Committee and BIS, the Financial Stability Board, or FSB, and, recently, the Network for Greening the Financial System, or NGFS, have more influence on and information about goals, intentions, and plans of U.S. regulatory agencies than does Congress.
“The tangled web of global governance bodies works behind closed doors in tight cohesion with U.S. regulatory officials and staff at the federal banking agencies.
“Staff from the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, and Treasury work with those bodies to develop regulatory standards, write policy papers, and promote the goals of those global governance bodies.
“Some federal banking officials sometimes even receive compensation from global governance bodies for their work in those bodies.
“U.S. federal banking agencies are held to abide by commitments that those bodies require of members in their self-constructed and sometimes dynamically changing mandates.
“Congress and the American people do not know what goes on in the global governance bodies, and federal banking agencies provide little information.
“On July 18, this subcommittee had officials from the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, and NCUA testify about purported climate-related financial risks and what those agencies were doing with the opaque NGFS, a global governance body dedicated to climate activism, and with the Biden Administration.
“Those officials showed shockingly little knowledge about what their agencies were doing within the NGFS, yet the NGFS, along with the BIS, FSB, and other strands of the tangled web of international bodies are playing growing roles in climate policymaking at the federal banking agencies.
“For example, the recent proposed federal principles for climate-related financial risk management align remarkably closely to those being pushed by the global governance bodies, as well as by the Biden Administration.
“The recent climate scenario analysis experiment of the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chair for Supervision directly responds to policy desires of global governance bodies like the NGFS, BIS, and FSB, along with an Executive Order and lobbying by the Financial Stability Oversight Council.
“The NGFS, as the increasingly vocal global governance body for climate, concerningly allows for outside activist funding of its so-called workstreams, including development of climate models and data, with funding channels tied to political and activist interests.
“As federal officials overseeing supervision and regulation of financial institutions adopt politicized proposals to implement bipartisan U.S. laws governing banking and finance, they threaten the independence of their agencies.
“However, as was the case with Operation Chokepoint under the Obama Administration, Democrat-appointed officials at federal banking agencies once again are pushing partisan proposals for supervision and regulation.
“In an attempt to appear independent, part of the regulators’ push is occurring through the use of these global governance bodies.
“To garnish support for partisan and activist positions, Democrat-appointed federal regulatory officials are putting forward proposals under the guise that they are necessary to align with agreements or commitments made in those bodies.
“Meanwhile, Congress and the American people are kept in the dark about what goes on at the global governance bodies.
“It will be of interest today to learn from our witnesses what they do or do not know about those bodies and what goes on behind closed doors.
“It will also be of interest to learn of the views of all of our witnesses on the recent onslaught of misguided, understudied federal banking regulations, including the Basel III Endgame.”
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