Sec. 2. Findings
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/bill/119/hr/987/ih/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds that— article I of the Constitution of the United States guarantees the people of the United States the right to enact public policy through the free and fair election of representatives and through the actions of State legislatures and Congress; financial institutions rightly objected to the Operation Choke Point initiative through which certain government agencies pressured financial institutions to cut off access to financial services to lawful sectors of the economy; in response to pressure from advocates whose policy objectives are served when financial institutions deny certain customers access to financial services, financial institutions are now, however, increasingly employing subjective, category-based evaluations to deny certain persons access to financial services; this privatization of the discriminatory practices underlying Operation Choke Point by financial institutions represents as great a threat to the national economy, national security, and the soundness of banking and financial markets in the United States as Operation Choke Point itself; financial institutions are supported by the United States taxpayers and enjoy significant privileges in the financial system of the United States and should not be permitted to act as de facto regulators or unelected legislators by withholding financial services to otherwise credit worthy businesses based on subjective political reasons, bias or prejudices; financial institutions are not well-equipped to balance risks unrelated to financial exposures and the operations required to deliver financial services; the United States taxpayers came to the aid for large financial institutions during the great recession of 2008 because they were deemed too important to the national economy to be permitted to fail; when a financial institution predicates the access to financial services of a person on factors or information (such as the lawful products a customer manufactures or sells or the services the customer provides) other than quantitative, impartial risk-based standards, the financial institution has failed to act consistent with basic principles of sound risk management and failed to provide fair access to financial services; financial institutions have a responsibility to make decisions about whether to provide a person with financial services on the basis of impartial criteria free from prejudice or favoritism; while fair access to financial services does not obligate a financial institution to offer any particular financial service to the public, or to operate in any particular geographic area, or to provide a service the financial institution offers to any particular person, it is necessary that— the financial services a financial institution chooses to offer in the geographic areas in which the financial institution operates be made available to all customers based on the quantitative, impartial risk-based standards of the financial institution, and not based on whether the customer is in a particular category of customers; financial institutions assess the risks posed by individual customers on a case-by-case basis, rather than category-based assessment; and financial institutions implement controls to manage relationships commensurate with these risks associated with each customer, not a strategy of total avoidance of particular industries or categories of customers; financial institutions are free to provide or deny financial services to any individual customer, but first, the financial institutions must rely on empirical data that are evaluated consistent with the established, impartial risk-management standards of the financial institution; and anything less is not prudent risk management and may result in unsafe or unsound practices, denial of fair access to financial services, cancelling, or eliminating certain businesses in society, and have a deleterious effect on national security and the national economy.