CEI Leads Letter Rejecting Recoup Act
Dear Speaker Johnson, Minority Leader Jeffries, Majority Leader Schumer, and Minority Leader McConnell:
As leaders of policy groups concerned with constitutional liberties, government accountability, and the abuse of power, we urge you to reject the dangerous and misguided S. 2190, the RECOUP (Recovering Executive Compensation Obtained from Unaccountable Practices) Act.
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.
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.
We believe the granting of new powers such as these to federal bank regulatory agencies would be especially dangerous given recent allegations of abuses of power at such agencies. For instance, the House Judiciary Committee revealed that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) instructed banks to send the government random info about purchases at outdoor sporting stores and use of the terms “Trump and “MAGA” in payment app messages, because FinCEN claimed that these mere purchases and word usage could be indicators of “extremism.” Giving bureaucrats a trove of data on people’s private purchases and speech could enable dossiers and profiles of law-abiding Americans that bureaucrats believe have the “wrong” pursuits and thoughts.
Similarly, a guidance document issued late last year by bank regulatory agencies — warning of the supposed risks to banks of dealing with fossil fuel industries — has been read by industry watchers as regulatory pressure on banks to sever relationships with companies and individuals in those sectors. This is reminiscent of Operation Choke Point, under which Obama administration agencies pressured banks to cut off or reduce financial services to several types of legal businesses —from firearms to fireworks – that bureaucrats deemed harmful to a bank’s “reputational risk.”
The RECOUP Act is flawed under any circumstances, but its boosting of the powers of financial regulatory agencies before these troubling issues are resolved would almost certainly lead to new abuses of power. We are also particularly concerned about provisions of the RECOUP Act being added to a must-pass appropriations bill. This approach would deny members of Congress the opportunity for basic debate of the far-reaching impactful provisions of the legislation. For these reasons, we urge you to reject the RECOUP Act as a stand-alone bill or if added to other legislation.
Sincerely,
John Berlau
Director of Finance Policy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
Saulius “Saul” Anuzis
President
60 Plus Association
James L. Martin
Founder/Chairman
60 Plus Association
Paul Teller
Executive Director
Advancing American Freedom
Thomas H. Jones
President
American Accountability Foundation Action
Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment
Steve Pociask
President/CEO
American Consumer Institute
Thomas Pyle
President
American Energy Alliance
Hon. Jason Isaac
CEO
American Energy Institute
Richard Manning
President
Americans for Limited Government
Brent Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer
Americans for Prosperity
*E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D.
President
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Maureen Blum
Executive Director
Catholics Count
Timothy Lee
Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs
Center for Individual Freedom
Craig Rucker
President
CFACT
Ashley Baker
Director of Public Policy
The Committee for Justice
Matthew Kandrach
President Consumer
Action for a Strong Economy
Craig Richardson
President
Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal)
Adam Brandon
President
FreedomWorks
Aidan Johnston
Director of Federal Affairs
Gun Owners of America
Cameron Sholty
Executive Director
Heartland Impact
James Taylor
President
The Heartland Institute
Hadley Heath Manning
Vice President for Policy
Independent Women’s Voice
Jon Sanders
Director of the Center for Food, Power, and Life
The John Locke Foundation
Seton Motley
President
Less Government
Charles Moran
President
Log Cabin Republicans
Charles Sauer
President
Market Institute
The Honorable Sam Brownback
Chairman
National Committee for Religions Freedom
Brandon Arnold
Executive Vice President
National Taxpayers Union
Donna Jackson
Director, Membership Development
Project 21 Black Leadership Network
Bette Grande
CEO, President
Roughrider Policy Center DBA Roughrider Institute
Karen Kerrigan
President & CEO
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
Patrick M. Brenner
President
Southwest Public Policy Institute
David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Andrew Langer
President
Institute for Liberty
*Benjamin Zycher
Senior Fellow
American Enterprise Institute
* Organizational affiliation is for identification only and does not imply organizational endorsement.