What You Need to Know
- The Financial Stability Oversight Council is supposed to report back in 180 days.
- FSOC will ask what insurance regulators are doing about climate-related risk.
- DOL is supposed to look for ways to protect pensions and retirement savings from climate-related financial risk.
The administration of President Joe Biden is launching an effort to assess how much climate change could affect the stability of the U.S. financial system.
Part of the effort will involve scrutiny of insurance regulation and of regulation of pensions and retirement savings arrangements.
The president started the effort Thursday by signing an executive order on climate-related financial risk.
The president asserts in the order that climate change is getting worse and poses a physical risk to private investments.
“The failure of financial institutions to appropriately and adequately account for and measure these physical and transition risks threatens the competitiveness of U.S. companies and markets, the life savings and pensions of U.S. workers and families, and the ability of U.S. financial institutions to serve communities,” the president says.
The president talks about insurers in the third section of the order, “Assessment of Climate-Related Financial Risk by Financial Regulators.”
He talks about retirement savings in the fourth section, “Resilience of Life Savings and Pensions.”
Executive Order Section 3: Assessment of Climate-Related Financial Risk by Financial Regulators
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) are supposed to look at the possible effects of climate change on financial institutions and report back within 180 days.
FSOC is a 15-member body that’s supposed to help U.S. financial services regulators detect, track and manage trends and forces that could topple the U.S. financial system.
FSOC includes an independent member with insurance expertise; the director of the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office, who serves as a non-voting member; and a state insurance commissioner, who also serves as a non-voting member.