Bank industry lobbyists are urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to proceed with caution on climate risk disclosure rules for the largest U.S. financial institutions.
The OCC, an independent bureau within the Treasury Department that charters and regulates banks, in December issued a draft framework for entities with more than $100 billion in assets, outlining principles on incorporating financial institutions’ lending exposure to climate risk into their governance and strategic planning.
Investors and financial market reform groups say the OCC has an opportunity to incentivize banks to report on emissions data in a standardized format, as well as catch up to regulators from other countries that have moved to mandatory reporting. Bank lobbyists say voluntary disclosure is working and that mandates would be unnecessarily burdensome.
