In remarks delivered during a hearing late last month, Rep. Andy Barr, Chair of the US House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, alleged that US banking regulators had strayed from their core mission, prioritizing political agendas over sound, risk-based oversight.
Barr argued that regulatory agencies had shifted away from their role of collaborating with banks to encourage compliance. Instead, he suggested regulators were spending too much time promoting "climate-related finance or the debanking of legally operating businesses," which he called "dangerous deviations" from their original purpose. He also criticized the lingering impact of Dodd-Frank, stating it imposed a "one-size-fits-all" framework on community banks that did not contribute to the financial crisis.
"Unfortunately, Democrat-appointed regulatory officials under the Biden administration have abandoned the bipartisan policy of tailoring in favor of a uniform, subjective-based approach," Barr argued. He concluded by urging Congress to reassert its role in preserving a balanced regulatory system and protecting financial integrity.
In remarks delivered at that same hearing, Margaret Tahyar, Head of the Financial Institutions Group at law firm Davis Polk, called for a sweeping reassessment of US bank supervision, urging transparency, accountability, and a renewed focus on material risks over process-driven oversight.
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