Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led a coalition of Republican state attorneys general opposing the Treasury Department's opposition to state laws restricting banks from considering some factors when investing. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led a coalition of attorneys general in a letter responding to the U.S. Treasury Department’s opposition to state laws that restrict banks from considering social or environmental factors when investing. North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley also signed the letter.
The Treasury Department’s letter, obtained by The Associated Press , warned that these banking laws could hurt national security efforts to counter money laundering and terrorism financing.
Bird’s letter , which was sent directly to Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen and signed by 20 Republican state attorneys general, dismissed those concerns and accused the department of trying to stoke opposition to these laws.
“All of us oppose this latest attempt by the Biden-Harris Administration to fearmonger and stoke confusion about state laws to advance activists’ extreme agendas,” the letter reads.
The Treasury Department’s letter singles out a recently passed law in Florida but other states like Iowa, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota have similar laws.
These laws generally prevent banking institutions from denying financial services over non-measurable risks associated with social, environmental or governmental concerns.
Proponents of these laws argue they are necessary to prevent banks from discriminating against those they politically oppose.
Bird said in a press release that laws like Iowa’s or Florida’s ensured banks couldn’t use “woke politics” when determining who to work with and demanded that the department stop its fearmongering.
“The Biden-Harris administration is scheming to block state laws that ban banks from playing woke politics and discriminating against those they disagree with,” Bird said in a press release. “Americans need access to basic resources like bank accounts and debit cards to pay their bills and provide for their families. No one should be hung out to dry because they are on the wrong side of a bank’s woke politics.”
The Treasury Department wrote that these laws heighten “the risk that international drug traffickers, transnational organized criminals, terrorists and corrupt foreign officials will use the U.S. financial system to launder money, evade sanctions, and threaten our national security.”
The letter from the attorneys general stands by those laws and alleges the department is using the concern over national security to promote “woke” political agendas.
“The Treasury Department has once again forsaken its statutory role and instead chosen to intervene on behalf of activists seeking to hijack the financial system for their political ends,” the letter reads. “It is even more disappointing that the Treasury Department would use ‘national security’ as cover for large banks’ abuse of power to achieve those ends.”
States with attorneys general who signed the letter are Florida, Iowa, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:
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