Trump Official Goes Rogue, Says Climate Change May Cause Next Financial Crisis

Since taking the oath of office in 2017, Donald Trump has made it clear that he cares about the environment about as much as freedom of the press and sounding lucid on Twitter. In the past 29 months, he’s ditched the Paris climate agreement; gutted regulations designed to prevent another Deepwater Horizon spill; unveiled a proposal to freeze rules on planet-warming pollution from cars and trucks; and put in motion a plan to bury evidence that his replacement for Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan could kill 1,400 Americans a year. The administration has muzzled science that contradicts its official stance that climate change is nothing to worry about—or is even a thing that exists—and, to that end, hired a guy who has said carbon dioxide is being demonized “just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” whose primary job is to discredit the conclusions of last year’s National Climate Assessment, a report written by 13 federal agencies that predicted harrowing consequences for not taking action on climate change. At this point, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising to learn that government employees caught even uttering the words “climate change” and “not good” around the water cooler gets cattle prodded by Aunt Lydia. Which makes it all the more shocking that a top regulator has gone “rogue” and defied Trump to speak out about the issue.

Rostin Behnam, who sits on the powerful five-member Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told the New York Times in an interview Monday that the financial risks from climate change are akin to those posed by the mortgage meltdown that caused the 2008 financial crisis. “If climate change causes more volatile frequent and extreme weather events, you’re going to have a scenario where these large providers of financial products—mortgages, home insurance, pensions—cannot shift risk away from their portfolios,” Behnam said. “It’s abundantly clear that climate change poses financial risk to the stability of the financial system.”

If you’re wondering how it came to pass that Trump appointed a guy who actually believes climate change is real, well, he didn’t exactly have a choice. Behnam’s seat, by law, had to be filled by a Democrat; legal experts told Times reporter Coral Davenport that it would be difficult, but not impossible, for Trump to fire or even demote Behnam. (The CFTC, like the Federal Reserve, is meant to operate more independently from the West Wing than other federal agencies, presumably to the president’s explosive chagrin.) “I have a unique bully pulpit,” said Behnam. While people in Behnam’s position have occasionally pushed back against presidential policies in private, government affairs experts told the Times that his initiative is unusual. “Rarely do you see a commissioner go rogue and public,” said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

And if Trump is unhappy about Behnam’s comments, he presumably won’t be thrilled with what’s coming next!