WASHINGTON, D.C.— Dennis Kelleher, Co-founder, President, and CEO of Better Markets, issued the following statement regarding today’s meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (Stability Council).

“The Financial Stability Oversight Council—one of the most important and powerful protections that emerged from the financial devastation of the 2008 financial crash—is blatantly undermining its own mission and ignoring both financial stability and oversight. The Stability Council is supposed to be protecting the country from financial crashes and taxpayer bailouts, but it is instead prioritizing Wall Street profits and bonuses over the wellbeing of Main Street Americans. This is an historic dereliction of duty, and the American people are going to pay a heavy price when the next horrific crash happens.

“The costs of financial stability must be paid at some point—either up front by Wall Street to prevent crashes from happening in the first place or by Main Street taxpayers when Wall Street’s deregulated risk-taking causes financial crashes. The actions of Trump’s Stability Council inevitably mean that the costs will be paid by hardworking Americans just like what happened in 2008. That’s not just unfair; it’s wrong.

“The Stability Council’s actions today increased risk in the economy, banking system, financial markets, and to the American people, rather than reducing it as the law requires:

• First, the Stability Council celebrated the array of deregulatory rules and actions that federal banking regulators have implemented so far during 2025, including cutting capital requirements, loosening merger rules, weakening stress testing for the largest banks, and easing supervision standards for the largest banks. Wall Street’s megabanks are no doubt celebrating, but community banks, small businesses, and all Americans are going to pay a steep price for such shortsighted actions.
• Second, Treasury Secretary Bessent said that the Stability Council would not protect the country from systemically significant nonbanks via designation authority and instead claiming to find other ways to control risk from shadow banks. This is a dangerous decision, given the persistent threat of unregulated  shadow banks, which now dwarf the size of the traditional banking sector. The Stability Council continued to ignore the fact that these gigantic financial firms are growing larger and more systemically important by the day, all while evading regulation that would protect the economy and the American people from their risk.
• Third, the Stability Council has decided to pick and choose among financial risks based on politics rather than data and facts. Financial regulators are mandated to protect the country from all financial risks regardless of origin or source. Yet the Stability Council eradicated its own work to protect the banking system and the American people from climate-related financial risk. This abrupt and baseless change in policy disregards years of data and fact-based analysis showing that the largest Wall Street banks, along with every homeowner, family, and business in America, are increasingly vulnerable to financial risks that arise from climate events. The fact that the Stability Council has voted to eliminate its working groups’ attention to these financial risks won’t make those risks go away; it will just leave the financial system, the economy, and all Americans even more vulnerable to those risks when they inevitably materialize.

“Finally, the Stability Council also voted to slash its own budget, severely limiting its ability to do its job and a clear sign it has no intention of fulfilling its legislatively mandated mission. The American people deserve—and the law requires—that the Stability Council monitor threats to financial stability, recommend heightened standards when the facts and data show they are necessary to protect the economy, and designate systemically important shadow banks for federal supervision. Not only is the Stability Council failing to meet its statutory mandate, but its actions are irresponsibly increasing the risks to the American people.”

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Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again. Better Markets works with allies—including many in finance—to promote pro-market, pro-business and pro-growth policies that help build a stronger, safer financial system that protects and promotes Americans’ jobs, savings, retirements and more. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.org.