Tell Federal Agencies: The Fight Against Climate Change Should Include Strong Consumer Protections and Access to Fair and Affordable Green Loans

I strongly urge the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy, Department of the Treasury, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to work together and take on the following immediate actions listed below to protect consumers like myself from unscrupulous financial scammers and to set the standard that green lending programs offered by governments, nonprofits, lenders, or utilities remain affordable, transparent, and accountable to safely and equitably expand access to green lending products to all consumers.

  • Clear Consumer Protection Program Guidance: The involved federal agencies must collaborate to produce consumer protection plan requirements for all federal programs. The requirements for each green product type should be aligned as closely as possible across federal programs.

  • Monitoring, Oversight, Accountability, and Enforcement: The CFPB, FTC, and the financial regulators must be vigilant about potential abuses in new green lending products by scrutinizing new products and services and their impacts and attentively supervising entities in these markets. Consumers need to know how and where to raise concerns and regulators should take swift enforcement action against predatory practices and actors.

  • Direct Consumer Education: Federal agencies should build out their online resource hubs to host FAQs and tip sheets for consumers on green lending products beyond solar that address common gaps or pitfalls in consumer awareness, ways to identify scams and fraud, local pricing guides, and checklists of required disclosures.

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