August, 17 2010, 04:12pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Bruce Mirken, Greenlining Institute Media Relations Coordinator, 510-926-4022
Greenlining Tells Fed: Communities of Color are "Canaries in the Coal Mine" of Economic Crisis
$350 Billion Loss of Wealth Requires Strong Action to Update Community Reinvestment Act
LOS ANGELES
In
testimony today before a Los Angeles hearing convened by the Federal
Reserve system and other federal financial agencies, the Greenlining
Institute called for strong action to modernize the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA), first passed in 1977. "In a sense, communities
of color have become the canaries in the coal mine of the economic
crisis," Greenlining Community Reinvestment Director Preeti Vissa told
the hearing. "While the nation has experienced a recession, too many in
our communities have experienced a depression."
Vissa's full testimony is available online here.
Vissa spoke during a day-long
hearing called by the Fed to consider updates to rules implementing CRA,
passed to encourage banks and other financial institutions to meet the
credit needs of the communities they serve. Vissa noted that
foreclosures have drained $350 billion in assets from communities of
color and Small Business Administration lending to minority-owned
businesses has cratered, contributing to a growing racial wealth gap.
"For every dollar of wealth owned by a white family, an African American
or Latino family owns just 16 cents," Vissa noted, adding that many
Asian American families are doing nearly as badly, but exact patterns
are harder to determine because current statistics lump all Asian
ethnicities together.
"As it is written today, CRA
lacks the power to address the inequities that are contributing to the
growing racial wealth gap," Vissa told the hearing. She called for a
series of reforms, including:
1) Place diversity front and center.
Although the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has called on financial
institutions to diversify their boards and staffs, African Americans,
Latinos and Asian Americans combined heldonly 9.3 percent of senior positions in the financial services industry in 2008.
2) Add minority business contracting to the CRA evaluation process.
Minority-led businesses are top job creators in low-income communities.
The California Public Utilities Commission's supplier diversity program
represents a successful model that financial regulators could easily
adopt.
3) Adapt the CRA rating system to incentivize innovation.
The current rating system fails to adequately reward outstanding
efforts and sometimes excessively rewards mediocre performance. More
grade levels should be added, along with a "community development" test
that would reward lending to and investment in community health clinics,
community-based loan funds, green affordable housing construction, etc.
4) Expand CRA to include all industries that provide financial products.
The financial services industry has transformed radically since 1977,
and the law must adjust. A modernized CRA should include investment
banks, insurers, hedge funds, and other financial institutions not
presently covered.
5) Make CRA matter again.
Weak enforcement has left community groups such as Greenlining to try to
enforce the law from the outside. In addition to a modern ratings
system, CRA needs tougher penalties for non-compliance and systematic
opportunities for consumers to comment on the performance of banks.
"The world has changed since CRA
was enacted in 1977, and CRA's failure to keep up has diminished its
effectiveness," Vissa said. "We can make CRA matter again."
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
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David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
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As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
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Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
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Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
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North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
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As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
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