Defeat the Big and Brutal Bill
Don’t let the congressional majority tell you otherwise: There’s nothing beautiful about a bill that gives up safety nets for everyone in exchange for tax cuts for the rich.
The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” (in the words of Trump himself) crawled out of the House Budget Committee last week, a flailing mass of dangerous giveaways to wealthy Wall Street actors. It’s Congress’ budget reconciliation bill, and it allows the Republican majority to change how the government spends (or doesn’t spend) its money, and who gets a tax break, while bypassing the Senate filibuster. Some of the worst features of the tax provisions approved out of the House Ways & Means Committee last week include:
A 10-year extension of the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017, which worked overwhelmingly to the benefit of very high earners.
Continuation of Wall street tax benefits, like the carried interest tax loophole, which mainly benefits private equity and venture capital barons.
A five percent tax on remittances for non-citizens, making it harder for families to make ends meet.
A moratorium on state legislation about artificial intelligence for a decade, a measure that could, among many other harms, boost rental price fixing software like RealPage that increases the cost of housing and fuel discrimination.
The deduction for income from pass-through businesses—which currently lets some individuals exclude up to 20 percent of their business income from federal tax—would be made permanent and increased to 22 percent. This change would overwhelmingly benefit wealthy individuals and private equity firms, hedge funds, and venture capital firms, which are frequently structured as these pass-throughs.
Extension and expansion of the Opportunity Zones tax giveaway for wealthy developers, including a new round of designations.
Said AFR’s Lisa Donner: “Congress should instead be closing loopholes and making other changes that would both increase revenue and end incentives that reward Wall Street wealth extraction and the expense of workers and communities.”
This big, brutal bill already imposes steep funding cuts to important agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sounding an open-season alarm for Wall Street, big banks and other abusive companies to take advantage of people.
The cuts come amid administration agents working from within the CFPB to withdraw critical guidance, rules and opinions, and half of its pending litigation, taking advantage of potential conflicts of interest to profit from the destruction of consumer safeguards. AFR rejects the slash-and-burn of consumer protections through these withdrawals, which will impact credit reports, consumer complaints, credit cards and servicemember rights. It’s gotten bad enough that the Government Accountability Office and Office of the Inspector General are looking into how DOGE is doing its dirty work.
Said AFR’s Christine Chen Zinner: “This administration has given a green light for financial predators to rip off everyday people, military families, and older adults – or anyone else, for that matter.”
And attacks from the outside, as Trump signed two laws that overturned overdraft fee limits and eased up on digital payment app supervision. Said AFR’s Amanda N. Jackson: “Trump has once again sided with big banks and tech oligarchs and not the working families that struggle to make ends meet when forced to pay a mountain of junk fees.”
States are left to pick up the federal government’s slack: Pennsylvania launched a centralized consumer protection hub, citing CFPB cuts. Advocacy groups in Colorado rejected Trump’s CFPB cuts. And New York put out legislation to protect consumers as part of its FY 2026 budget.
BANKING AND FINANCIAL STABILITY: Capital Rules – Big, Free to Get Bigger – Illegal Firings – No Dereg – McKernan
CONSUMER: Where’s the Money? – Credit Cards are Still Expensive – Closing Off Banking – Relief from “Debt-Relief” – Too Much off the Top – Medical Debt – Student Borrowers in Danger – The FedEx-ec in the Post Office – Data Broken – Unwise – Buy Now, Pain Later – No Supervising Google – Car Credit – Walmart
CAPITAL MARKETS: The “Debanking” Distraction
PRIVATE MARKETS: Big Barons in Public Service – Rethinking PE – PE and Healthcare – A Private Equity Oil Spill – PE and Mobile Homes – Powering Up – Toying with Your Life (Insurance) – Musk Has Your Retirement
CRYPTO: Crypto Crap – The Coinbase Crisis – Atkins’ Ask – Meta Diem Redux – Trump’s Crypto Conflict
HOUSING: Visualizing a Crisis – Enabling Monopolist Price Gougers – Draining HOME – No More Assistance
CLIMATE AND FINANCE: Who Knows How Much? – Out of Scope – Insurance
Feedback? Reach us at afrnews@ourfinancialsecurity.org
BANKING AND FINANCIAL STABILITY
Capital Rules.
Bank regulators want to reduce the levels of high-quality capital that the biggest banks have to hold in reserve to absorb potential losses, a shift that would dramatically shrink the safety cushion that the financial system relies on during times of crisis. Officials are eying changes to the supplementary leverage ratio, which requires the largest systemically important banks to hold additional equity funding relative to riskier debt to shore up systemic risk.
Big, Free to Get Bigger.
Senate Republicans used S.J.Res.13, a Congressional Review Act resolution, to reverse a Biden-era policy from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that sought to strengthen how the agency scrutinized bank mergers. While the eventual rule was too modest by the time it was finalized in September 2024, it still eliminated outdated allowances that automatically approved some bank mergers and expedited others. Republicans’ recent move to overturn the policy gave a “giant gift to Wall Street banks and corporate monopolists,” AFR writes, allowing the biggest banks to pursue massive mergers and dodge accountability.
Related: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, urged the Department of Justice to block a proposed megamerger between Capital One/Discover that regulators greenlit earlier this year.
Illegal Firings.
Some weeks after the Trump administration illegally fired the two Democratic board members of the National Credit Union Administration, among several other unlawful mass layoffs, the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy debunked the president’s legal counsel’s arguments in a related case, Slaughter v. Trump. In March, FTC Commissioners Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya challenged Trump’s attempt to ouster them without cause. Protect Democracy asked the court to reject the Trump administration’s arguments:
They ask this Court to brush aside a century of precedent in favor of an untenable reading of Seila Law that ignores broad swaths of that opinion, misconstrues the FTC’s authority, side-steps much of U.S. history, and would overturn several Supreme Court decisions and invalidate two-dozen statutes adopted and adhered to by nearly every President and Congress over the last 150 years.
No Dereg.
AFR urged members of House Financial Services to oppose financial deregulatory measures while the capacity and independence of financial regulators are under sustained attack. The majority of the measures under consideration in this markup do not strengthen capital formation, they expose smaller, retail investors to informational asymmetry, losses, and steep fees they cannot afford from opaque, risky, and illiquid private markets.
McKernan.
DOGE, created under Trump and led by Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause, is under fire for serious ethics concerns. Krause holds major stock in firms like JPMorgan and Accenture—companies that do business with the Treasury—raising red flags given his oversight of federal payments and debt. DOGE aide Gavin Kliger, who helped cut CFPB staff, also owns stock in firms the bureau regulates, possibly violating ethics laws. Meanwhile, Jonathan McKernan, initially slated to lead the CFPB, has been quietly redirected to a top Treasury role.
CONSUMER
Where’s the Money?
During its more robust, less Vought-ish days, if someone who was wronged by a financial actor made a successful complaint to the CFPB, they could expect to get an average of $1,470 back in their pocket. That’s according to the Southern Methodist University and Arizona State University, which analyzed nearly two million consumer complaints filed since 2014. Last week, however, the Trump administration announced it would withdraw guidance that made these complaints available for the public to see.
Related: A group of officials from 11 states demanded to know where $4.2 million owed to users of the vocational training program Prehired – which came under fire for its illegal and deceptive student lending practices almost two years ago – has gone. State attorneys general and other regulators said that unexplained delays at the agency are keeping the money out of the hands of those who were harmed.
Credit Cards are Still Expensive.
After months of industry whining over the CFPB’s credit card rule, which would have capped the typical late fee at $8, big banks got their way when a federal judge overturned the rule. Despite their complaints that they’d have to increase fees and interest rates if the rule stood, some of the largest providers of retail credit cards have instead kept rates high even after getting the rule axed.
Closing Off Banking.
The CFPB is expected to amend, reissue, or even ask a court to vacate its newly finalized open banking rule under Section 1033 — a move that could unravel years of work to give consumers more control over their financial data. Originally finalized under the Biden administration in late 2024, the rule was designed to boost competition and innovation by requiring banks to share data with third-party fintech companies at consumers’ request. But after a lawsuit from the Bank Policy Institute, the CFPB, now under leadership more aligned with the Trump administration, is reconsidering the rule. However: the judge overseeing the case has allowed the Financial Technology Association, which represents fintech firms, to defend the rule.
Relief from “Debt-Relief.”
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered the former owner of a failed debt-relief company to pay more than $43 million in restitution and penalties. The CFPB previously filed suit against the company, FDATR, Inc., in 2020.
Too Much off the Top.
The National Consumer Law Center scrutinizes how workplace payday lending (earned wage advance) programs, which often charge fees to allow workers to access portions of their paychecks early, are actually payday loans in disguise. One provider, DailyPay, charged the equivalent of a 750 percent APR for its most common, one-week loan. Over half of its users took out two more advances per week, and over a quarter took out advances every other day. The company trapped users, the NCLC writes, in a “borrowing treadmill,” and used tricks to encourage more borrowing.
Related: Staff Sergeant Terrance Moss filed a class-action lawsuit against Cleo, a company that claims to use artificial intelligence to provide personalized financial services including cash advances. The complaint alleges that the cash advance product violates the Military Lending Act and Truth in Lending Act with high fees that amount to an average of 652-percent APRs.
Medical Debt.
A recent federal court ruling allows consumer advocates to step in and defend the CFPB’s rule to remove medical debt from credit reports—after the agency stopped defending it under new leadership. The rule, finalized in January 2025, would erase roughly $49 billion in medical debt from the credit histories of 15 million Americans. The National Consumer Law Center, along with impacted individuals, successfully intervened in the case: “We are eager to defend the CFPB’s rule to provide much-needed relief for consumers with medical debt,” said NCLC attorney Jennifer Wagner.
The broader implications of medical debt on credit reports have been a topic of concern among consumer advocates. As AFR communications intern, Chloe Rogers, wrote: “Credit scores wield enormous power over people’s lives, but most of us don’t understand them — until it’s too late. Behind that three-digit number is a web of private companies and political decisions. If we don’t fix the system, we’ll reinforce inequality in invisible but deeply unfair ways.”
Student Borrowers in Danger.
AFREF and 183 other organizations joined a letter from the Student Borrower Protection Center and Democracy Forward decrying the Trump administration’s executive order overhauling critical parts of the student loan safety net, including the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The change would stop student loan borrowers who work at nonprofits that oppose the Trump administration from qualifying for the PSLF, an initiative that traditionally forgives student loan debt if the borrower works for the government, 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and other nonprofits that provide certain public services.
Related: Sen. Warren invited Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to explain her department’s policies, which the senator says could put millions of student loan borrowers at risk.
The FedEx-ec in the Post Office.
The next head of the public postal service is… an executive at a private mail carrier? Last Friday, the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors announced the appointment of David Steiner as the next postmaster general. AFR’s Take On Wall Street coalition raises the alarm on the concerning pick, which comes at a time when the postal service struggles with the aftermath of former Postmaster Louis DeJoy’s attempt to gut it. Said AFR’s Annie Norman:
Appointing a senior executive from a USPS competitor would be all but a hostile takeover and a gigantic leap towards privatizing the post office…We need a postmaster committed to public service, and expanding USPS, not slowly selling it off for profit to his rich friends and sticking us with the bill.
Data Broken.
The Trump CFPB withdrew the agency’s previously proposed data broker rule, which would have limited how our sensitive and private financial data is collected, used, and sold. With limited regulation over data brokers, the companies that buy and sell our personal information, the rule’s withdrawal will let private actors pawn off people’s sensitive financial data to strangers. Wrote AFR’s Christine Chen Zinner:
They are allowing financial companies to make us let them use and sell vast amounts of personal data in order to access basic services and inviting abuse by data brokers, who can sell sensitive personal financial data to the highest bidder. Throwing out this rule allows data harvesting and sale to proliferate across the economy and our lives.
Unwise.
Originally, the CFPB directed the money remittance company Wise to pay a $450,000 in redress to consumers who were allegedly misled about the service’s fees or were unable to obtain timely refunds, as well as a $2 million fine to the agency’s victim relief fund. Vought’s CFPB has since reduced the repayment amount to a mere $45,000 with no mention of the victim relief fund.
Buy Now, Pain Later.
A recent Bankrate survey reveals that nearly half of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) users have encountered financial issues, such as overspending, missed payments, and purchase regrets. Gen Z users are particularly affected, with 66 percent reporting problems, including nearly a third who acknowledged overspending and over a quarter who regretted a purchase. The primary motivation for using BNPL services is to manage cash flow through installment payments, cited by 57 percent of users. However, the evolving nature of BNPL plans, some extending over months or years with interest rates ranging from 15 to 20 percent, raises concerns about potential debt accumulation. This is why the previous CFPB’s Buy-Now-Pay-Later policy (now rescinded) offered helpful requirements and disclosures for BNPL providers, including reiterating that these are loans and requiring interest rate and fee disclosures.
No Supervising Google.
In December, the CFPB reeled Google into receiving the same supervision as big banks, since the company provides various financial services to tens of millions of people through their Google Wallet offering. Google promptly sued the agency in an attempt to dodge oversight. This month, however, the CFPB chose to drop the supervision policy, and Google dropped its lawsuit.
Car Credit.
In 2023, the CFPB ordered Toyota’s lending arm to pay $60 million after the agency found that the company operated an illegal scheme to stop borrowers from cancelling product bundles that increased their monthly car payments, delayed refunds, and providing false information to consumer reporting companies. This month, Trump’s CFPB terminated the order.
Walmart.
In December 2024, CFPB sued Walmart and its fintech partner Branch Messenger for forcing the retailer’s delivery drivers to “use costly deposit accounts to get paid,” illegally opening those accounts, and deceiving workers. Trump’s CFPB motioned to dismiss the lawsuit.
CAPITAL MARKETS
The “Debanking” Distraction.
Some influential industries – fossil fuels and crypto among them – have whined about so-called debanking, hijacking civil rights language to push for deregulation. Recently, these industries got their way when the Senate Banking Committee Republicans advanced the Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act, which would ban regulators from considering reputational risk. Wrote AFR’s Merron Lemmi:
The industry tantrums about alleged debanking, which misappropriate terms like discrimination, are nothing more than attempts to protect risky, politically powerful industries from reasonable scrutiny…Ironically, while claiming industry discrimination, many of these same lawmakers are actively trying to dismantle actual individual civil rights, including by attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and anti-discrimination efforts. Real people, particularly people of color, low-income individuals, and immigrant communities, continue to struggle to access banking services.
This bill is scheduled to be marked up this week at the House Financial Services Committee. AFR along with 24 groups sent a letter expressing opposition to the Committee.
PRIVATE MARKETS
Big Barons in Public Service.
AFR’s Geraldo Salcedo lowlights the private equity barons that have weaseled into public service positions since Trump took office, many of whom have since taken a dangerously deregulatory tack. Paul Atkins is at the SEC, Bill Pulte crowned himself king of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Ben Black took over the U.S. International Development Corporation, and Stephen Feinberg infiltrated the Pentagon. Writes Salcedo: “These executives’ new leadership positions create conflicts of interest, allowing them to direct government actions and regulatory decisions that may potentially enrich their own companies or industry allies.”
Rethinking PE.
Between the United States’ economic and policy uncertainty, high borrowing costs, and muted economic prospects, Toby Nangle of the Financial Times suggests that big investors may want to rethink pushing money into private equity. Returns are “likely to be lower,” he writes, and “overwhelming US policy uncertainty intensifies the challenge.”
PE and Healthcare.
Nearly a quarter of for-profit hospitals in the United States, and nearly 10 percent of private hospitals, are owned by private equity. A bill in Maine’s legislature, which would stop PE and certain other large real estate investment vehicles from purchasing or increasing their stakes in hospitals across the state until 2029, is gaining momentum. The proposal is headed to the assembly’s Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services before potentially going up before the full legislature.
Across the country, doctors have pointed to deteriorating patient care under PE ownership. Some have even raised the alarm for other industries with ethical codes, like accounting, which are on the precipice of private equity domination.
A Private Equity Oil Spill.
An 82-year-old oil well spat a geyser of oil, gas and water into a Louisiana marsh for over a week, even though it should have been permanently sealed years ago. It’s owned by a company called Spectrum Energy, which a Public Citizen investigation found is owned by the private equity firm Latium Enterprises.
PE and Mobile Homes.
Private equity firms are rapidly buying up mobile home parks across the U.S., prioritizing profits over safe living conditions—often resulting in mold, broken plumbing, and other serious hazards. Low-income families and seniors are especially at risk. But momentum is building for reform: advocates are urging policymakers to strengthen oversight, enforce health and safety standards, and expand tenant protections. Some states are exploring rent stabilization, right-to-purchase laws, and public or nonprofit ownership models to keep these communities safe and affordable.
Powering Up.
The private equity megafirm Blackstone wants to scoop up New Mexico’s largest utility, TXNM Energy, a buyout that would give the firm control over a market of over 800,000 homes and businesses.
Toying with Your Life (Insurance).
At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, Vice Chairman Ajit Jain sounded the alarm on the growing footprint of private equity firms in the life insurance industry, warning that their aggressive investment strategies are injecting dangerous levels of risk into a sector meant to safeguard families’ long-term financial security. Jain singled out firms like Apollo, Blackstone, and KKR for prioritizing short-term returns over the long-term solvency that insurance demands. As these firms expand their reach, often with opaque financial structures and high-yield investment tactics, regulators and consumers alike face mounting concerns about whether policyholders’ futures are being gambled away for private equity’s profit.
Musk Has Your Retirement.
Elon Musk and private equity mogul Antonio Gracias worked to gut the Social Security Administration, putting the payments – and legal identities – of millions of people at risk. While the two have denied some Social Security beneficiaries, 52.5 million of whom are retirees, their benefits, Gracias’ private equity firm stands to net tens of millions of dollars in the fees it charges big investors to manage their investments. That includes public pension funds, which stash people’s money away to save for retirement.
Said AFR’s Oscar Valdés Viera:
Public pension funds are one of the biggest sources of capital for private equity firms. Workers indirectly fund private equity’s predatory practices through their pension funds. The private equity billionaires benefit from tax loopholes and giveaways that the rest of us do not get…They charge a lot of fees, like management fees, professional fees, director and officer fees, accounting fees, transfer agent fees, and most of these fees are coming directly from pension funds and similar investors.
Meanwhile: The PE firm Partners Group wants the U.S. Department of Labor to greenlight PE involvement in 401(k)s. Research shows that private equity is much riskier than the publicly traded funds in which other institutional investors put their money.
CRYPTO
Crypto Crap.
In the House of Representatives, Republican lawmakers rolled out a draft for a bill that would reshape how crypto is regulated. The legislation wants to split up power between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the SEC, making the former stronger and the latter weaker. It echoes parts of a previous crypto market structure bill, which advocates suggested would weaken protections.
The Coinbase Crisis.
Hostile actors were able to bribe employees at Coinbase, one of the foremost crypto exchanges that previously ran into trouble with the SEC for its unregistered securities offerings and limiting investor protections, to leak some users’ sensitive information. Then, they demanded a $20 million ransom. The information was only made public once disclosed in an obligatory filing with the SEC made by Coinbase, but in that filing it was shared that Coinbase knew of the breach months ago, in January.
On Thursday, plaintiffs lodged a proposed class action against the company over the hack.
Separately: The SEC is investigating whether Coinbase misstated its claims that it had more than 100 million “verified users.”
Atkins’ Ask.
On the topic of weakened protections: Trump-appointed SEC Chair Paul Atkins asked agency staff to consider a policy that would “better accommodate crypto assets” among firms that are already registered with the SEC.
Meta Diem Redux.
Three years after abandoning their previous token, Diem, Meta (the Facebook company) wants to roll out a new stablecoin project. AFR has previously called out the potential dangers of letting Big Tech and other private actors create stablecoin tokens, including the possibility of corporate surveillance of consumers, exploitation and manipulation, and concentration risk.
Amid the Zuckerbergian interest in a risky asset class, Sen. Elizabeth Warren urges her colleagues to include protections against corporations issuing stablecoins in their crypto bill.
Trump’s Crypto Conflict.
Trump's expanding cryptocurrency ventures have ignited significant ethical and legal concerns. His memecoin, launched earlier this year, has already been flagged as a vehicle for influence peddling and as a tool to fleece investors. This past month, both might occur. Trump auctioned off seats to an exclusive private dinner at his Virginia golf club; the top buyers of $TRUMP were the ones offered the seats.
This promotion has attracted substantial foreign investment, with reports indicating that over half of the top holders are likely based overseas, including individuals linked to controversial figures such as Justin Sun. Critics argue that this arrangement blurs the line between political influence and personal profit, effectively creating a pay-to-play scheme. And now that the contest is over, investors have begun cashing out their tokens, fearing the usual precipitous drop in value that occurs with memecoins once the hype is over.
Simultaneously, Trump's involvement in World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-founded with his sons, has raised further alarms. The company recently played middleman in a $2 billion investment by a UAE-government linked investment fund in the disgraced crypto platform Binance. The deal involved using Trump’s newly issued USD1 stablecoin as the financing vehicle, intensifying concerns about foreign influence and conflicts of interest.
Earlier, these developments stalled the bipartisan GENIUS Act in the Senate, as lawmakers demanded stricter safeguards against potential self-dealing and corruption. On Monday, however, the flawed bill moved ahead in the Senate, despite threatening to destabilize the system and legitimize Trump’s crypto grift. Said AFR’s Mark Hays: “Voting to move this legislation effectively endorses the abuse of the presidential office and rubber stamps a host of cryptocurrency practices that can defraud investors, perpetuate illicit finance, and threaten to unravel our financial system.”
As the Trump administration continues to intertwine official duties with personal business interests, the calls for transparency and accountability grow louder. At the same time, Eric Trump’s new bitcoin-mining company American Bitcoin wants to go public, with plans to merge with a NASDAQ-traded company.
HOUSING
Visualizing a Crisis.
AFR shared maps and statistics with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee prior to two hearings this month on the insurance crisis, which is compounded by climate change, using a mapping tool created by the Revolving Door Project and Public Citizen.
Enabling Monopolist Price Gougers.
RealPage, the tech company that was implicated in a scheme that allowed a secret cartel of landlords to jack up rental prices across the nation, might be getting legal protections from the Republican budget bill, The Lever reports. The bill language would stop state governments from passing any regulations on artificial intelligence technology. The legislation comes amid a flood of lobbying cash from RealPage and other real estate groups.
Said AFR’s Caroline Nagy:
States can, should and have every right to protect tenants from unfair, anti-competitive behavior in the marketplace, generally, but especially regarding housing. Frankly, corporate landlords are doing quite well while everyone else isn't, and to support a ban on these state laws is fundamentally anti-renter, and I would say anti-housing.
Draining HOME.
House Financial Services Ranking Member Rep. Waters criticized Trump’s plan to cut funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by $26 billion, effectively bringing an end to many types of housing assistance for families, the elderly and people with disabilities.
AFREF and 29 other organizations decried how federal rollbacks would make the nation’s housing crisis worse. Wrote the groups:
These recent actions at HUD and FHFA are worsening the fair and affordable housing crisis, including by making it even harder for people to buy their first home. Shifting market and consumer sentiments also indicate their unpopularity…
Without significant course correction, the recent policies adopted by HUD and FHFA will make it harder for people to fairly access and afford a place to call home. This result is inconsistent with the law and goes directly against the President's and your stated commitment to address our housing crisis.
No More Assistance.
The Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program, created with $5 billion from the American Rescue Plan, is set to run out of funds by 2026 (four years earlier than expected) due to rising rents and inflation. Nearly 60,000 people, including those facing homelessness or fleeing domestic violence, are at risk of losing housing support. The crisis is especially severe in places like California, where cities like San Diego and Los Angeles expect to exhaust their EHV funds within the next year. Advocates warn that ending the program prematurely will not only increase housing instability but also reverse gains in food security and mental health.
CLIMATE and FINANCE
Who Knows How Much?
If they had happened in 2024, we might have gotten an accurate estimate of the amount of damage that the Palisades and Eaton wildfires caused when they tore across parts of California. For decades, the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters program under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave us a sobering picture of how climate-intensified disasters slammed communities. Now, however, federal cuts have forced the program to close. While reports spanning 1980 to 2024 will remain available, the project will do no more work to understand the scale of these massive disasters.
Out of Scope.
The International Sustainability Standards Board, a body under the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation that maintains independent standards for sustainability used widely by corporations around the world, announced it would likely ease up on crucial reporting requirements for companies in the financial sector. If approved, these changes would allow financial firms to hide major categories of financed greenhouse gas emissions, including those tied to insurance and capital markets financing.
Insurance.
State Farm is facing mounting scrutiny from California officials and wildfire survivors over its handling of smoke damage claims after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles County. Survivors report long delays, poor communication, and inadequate payouts. These complaints come as State Farm seeks a 17% hike in homeowners’ insurance rates and up to 38 percent among rentals, a request that was conditionally approved by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. In response, Lara has launched an investigation into the company’s claims practices and urged reforms, including providing at least 75% of coverage without requiring exhaustive inventories. Lawmakers are now calling for a broader review of State Farm’s conduct and reconsideration of the rate increase, with regulatory action likely to follow.