ImpactAlpha, Apr. 13 – From Opportunity Zones reform to SEC nominees, it’s been a busy few days on Capitol Hill for policy affecting impact investors. The U.S. Impact Investing Alliance is helping us keep track:
- Optimizing Opportunity Zones. The Opportunity Zones Transparency, Extension, and Improvement Act, introduced last week by legislators led by Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tim Scott (R-SC), includes impact reporting requirements, sunsetting for higher-income census tracts and $1 billion for capacity-building work in communities.
- Climate risk in insurance. The primary regulator of the U.S. insurance industry approved climate risk reporting standards based on the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. More than a dozen states and Washington, D.C. have agreed to adopt the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ recommendation, covering 80% of the U.S. market.
- SEC’s bipartisan nominees. Last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rules for public companies to disclose climate-related risks. This week, President Biden nominated two new commissioners: Democrat Jaime Lizárraga, an advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Republican Mark T. Uyeda, an SEC attorney currently working with the Senate Banking Committee.
