The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) joined the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and other free-market organizations in a letter sent to Speaker Johnson, Minority Leader Jeffries, Majority Leader Schumer, and Minority Leader McConnell urging the rejection of the Recovering Executive Compensation Obtained from Unaccountable Practices (RECOUP) Act. The letter, organized by CEI, pointed out that “The RECOUP Act would increase financial regulatory agencies’ powers excessively by allowing them to remove the leadership of any U.S. bank they supervise, even if the agency doesn’t deem such a bank as at risk of going under.”
It continued:
Under the bill, financial regulators would have the power to remove the executives of banks – including the smallest of community banks – anytime these bureaucrats believe a bank has failed “to appropriately implement financial, risk, or supervisory reporting or information system or controls.” The bill’s language is written so broadly that it may allow bank regulators to take over banks on the basis of policy judgments about certain industries with which the banks do business. It has been postulated, for instance, that executives of banks lending to oil and gas producers could be subject to the bill’s removal provisions for failing to implement adequate “climate risk” reporting or controls.
In addition to CEI and E&E Legal, more than thirty other organizations signed the letter.
