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natural disasters
As Planet Burns, US Banking Agencies Ditch Climate Risk Rules
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently warned that due to climate disasters, "there will be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage, there won’t be ATMs, banks won’t have branches."
Oct 17, 2025
Federal regulators have rescinded a set of guidelines for large banking institutions to consider the financial dangers of the climate crisis when making decisions about business strategy, risk management, and strategic planning.
On Thursday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Reserve Board announced that they would immediately withdraw their interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions, a framework that required financial institutions with $100 billion or more in assets to consider climate risks.
The guidelines were first issued in 2023, which was, at the time, the hottest year on record. That year, the US experienced a record number of weather and climate-related disasters—including a massive drought across the south and Midwest, historic wildfires in Hawaii, and major flooding events across the country—that caused at least $92 billion worth of damage.
In October of that year, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said: "Banks need to understand, and appropriately manage, their material risks, including the financial risks of climate change."
The OCC, meanwhile, explained that "financial institutions are likely to be affected by both the physical risks and transition risks associated with climate change." This included both the risks to the safety of people and property "from acute, climate-related events, such as hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and heatwaves, and chronic shifts in climate," as well as changes due to "shifts in policy... that would be part of a transition to a lower carbon economy."
But these concerns have not carried over to the administration of President Donald Trump, who recently referred to climate change as a "con" and has sought to purge the federal government of any acknowledgement of the scientific consensus that it is being caused by human fossil fuel usage, which he has moved to aggressively expand.
In a joint release Thursday, the agencies said they "do not believe principles for managing climate-related financial risk are necessary because the agencies' existing safety and soundness standards require all supervised institutions to have effective risk management commensurate with their size, complexity, and activities," adding that "all supervised institutions are expected to consider and appropriately address all material financial risks and should be resilient to a range of risks, including emerging risks."
Elyse Schupak, policy advocate with Public Citizen's climate program, criticized the withdrawal of the guidelines, calling it "an irresponsible and politically motivated move in the wrong direction."
"The increase in the frequency and severity of climate disasters and the rapidly escalating property insurance crisis mean the agencies should be working harder to understand and mitigate climate-related financial risks faced by banks and the financial system—not backtracking," she said. "Effective bank regulation requires looking squarely at all risks to supervised institutions, including climate risks, and addressing them before they have destabilizing effects. This approach, rather than politics, should guide regulator action."
The move comes as the globe is reaching the point of no return for the climate crisis. Global temperatures have already soared to between 1.3°C and 1.4°C above preindustrial levels and are expected to pass the 1.5°C threshold within the next five years, at which point many of the worst effects will become unavoidable. These effects include more frequent heatwaves, sea level increases, more frequent severe storms, and aggressive droughts.
In addition to the human toll, these entail considerable financial damage. In December 2024, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that if the Earth continues to warm at current rates, the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) will be 4% lower than if temperatures had remained stable.
It predicted that sea level rise—projected 1 to 4 feet by the turn of the century—would cause anywhere from $250 billion to $930 billion worth of losses to property owners, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and the federal government. Other untold costs, it said, would be borne as a result of heightened mortality from heat, declines in available food and water, increased rates of illness, and forced migration due to unlivable conditions.
Testifying before Congress earlier this year, Powell noted that banks and insurance companies have been pulling out of coastal areas at risk of flooding and places prone to wildfires due to the financial risk.
State Farm had recently canceled thousands of policies in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles shortly before it was hit with massive wildfires in January. He warned that as climate change worsens, financial institutions will deem it too risky to serve large portions of the country.
"If you fast forward 10 or 15 years," Powell said, "there will be regions of the country where you can't get a mortgage, there won't be ATMs, banks won't have branches, and things like that."
Schupak said: "For the Federal Reserve, capitulation to the politics of climate denial championed by the Trump administration is a threat to both its legitimacy and efficacy, which will be hard to repair."
"Powell has admitted that the Federal Reserve has done the 'bare minimum' on climate," she continued. "Now it will do even less, putting the banks it supervises and the broader financial system at risk."
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'Unforgivable': FEMA Missed Thousands of Calls from Texas Flood Victims After Noem Fired Contractors
"They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Jul 12, 2025
Outrage continues to grow against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over her response to the deadly floods that ravaged Texas last week.
According to a Friday report from The New York Times, more than two-thirds of phone calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from flood victims went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off on July 5, just a day after the nightmare storm.
According to The Times, this dramatically hampered the ability of the agency to respond to calls from survivors in the following days:
On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.
That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.
The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
Calling is one of the primary ways that flood victims apply for aid from the disaster relief agency. But Noem would wait until July 10—five days later—to renew the contracts of the people who took those phone calls.
"Responding to less than half of the inquiries is pretty horrific," Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told The Times.
"Put yourself in the shoes of a survivor: You've lost everything, you're trying to find out what's insured and what's not, and you’re navigating multiple aid programs," he added. "One of the most important services in disaster recovery is being able to call someone and walk through these processes and paperwork."
The lapse is a direct result of a policy introduced by Noem last month, which required any payments made by FEMA above $100,000 to be directly approved by her before taking effect. Noem, who has said she wants to eliminate FEMA entirely, described it as a way of limiting "waste, fraud, and abuse."
Under this policy, Noem allowed other critical parts of the flood response to wait for days as well. Earlier this week, multiple officials within FEMA told CNN that she waited more than 72 hours to authorize the deployment of search and rescue teams and aerial imaging.
Following The Times' piece, DHS put out a statement claiming that "NO ONE was left without assistance, and every call was responded to urgently."
"When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase," DHS said. "Despite this expected influx, FEMA's disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance. No call center operators were laid off or fired."
This is undercut, however, by internal emails also obtained by The Times, which showed FEMA officials becoming frustrated and blaming the DHS Secretary for the lack of contracts. One official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues: "We still do not have a decision, waiver, or signature from the DHS Secretary."
Democratic lawmakers were already calling for investigations into Noem's response to the floods before Friday. They also sought to look into how the Trump administration's mass firings of FEMA employees, as well as employees of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may have hampered the response.
Following The Times' revelations, outrage has reached a greater fever pitch.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called it "unforgivable and unforgettable" and an "inexcusable lapse in top leadership."
"Sec. Noem shows that dismantling FEMA impacts real people in real time," he said. "It hurts countless survivors & increases recovery costs."
In response to the news, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) simply wrote that "Kristi Noem must resign now."
Others pointed out that Noem has often sought to justify abolishing FEMA by characterizing it as slow and ineffectual. They suggested her dithering response was deliberate.
"She broke it on purpose," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in an interview on MSNBC. "So that when it fails this summer, she can say, 'Oh, see, we told you—FEMA doesn't work.'"
"It's not really incompetence because they know what they are doing," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis."
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California Bill, Ad Campaign Aim to Hold Big Oil Accountable for LA Wildfires
"Major fossil fuel companies intentionally misled the public for decades about the impacts of their products, and now Californians are paying the price," according to the office of California state Sen. Scott Wiener.
Jan 28, 2025
In California, recently introduced legislation and a new six-figure ad campaign called "Make Polluters Pay" indicate that the drumbeat to hold oil and gas companies directly accountable for their role in fueling climate disasters, like the Los Angeles wildfires, is growing.
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11) on Monday introduced legislation that would allow homeowners, businesses, and insurance companies to recoup losses incurred by a climate disaster by seeking damages from fossil fuel companies.
The bill would also permit California's FAIR Plan, the state-created insurer of last resort for fire coverage, to do the same so it doesn’t become insolvent.
"Major fossil fuel companies intentionally misled the public for decades about the impacts of their products, and now Californians are paying the price with devastating wildfires, mudslides, sea level rise, and skyrocketing insurance costs," according to a statement from Wiener's office.
Wiener himself said that "containing these costs is critical to our recovery and to the future of our state. By forcing the fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis to pay their fair share, we can help stabilize our insurance market and make the victims of climate disasters whole."
Wildfires engulfed the Los Angeles region earlier this month, burning tens of thousands of acres of land and destroying more then 16,000 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Damage estimates indicate the wildfires could be the costliest wildfire disaster in U.S. history.
The fires have also strained insurers, and led to increased rents in the area. Washington Post reporting found that rents in Los Angeles County rose above the legally permitted 10% after the wildfires.
Meanwhile, the communications firm Fossil Free Media launched a six-figure campaign, Make Polluters Pay, on Friday. The campaign is aimed at supporting "the growing demand that Big Oil companies pay their fair share for the Los Angeles wildfires and other climate disasters that are costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year."
The campaign includes ads on Facebook and Instagram, as well as other digital platforms, which will highlight the plight of people like the Howes family, who lost their home to a California wildfire.
According to a statement from Fossil Free Media, over 4,000 people have signed on to a petition sponsored by the organization urging California lawmakers to pass a "climate superfund bill," which would compel polluters to pay into a fund that would help prevent disasters and aid cleanup efforts.
California lawmakers introduced, but did not pass, a bill like this—the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act—in the last legislative session. New York and Vermont recently passed similar legislation.
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