As financial services reform was crafted, the insurance lobbied successfully to have the purview of the nascent Federal Insurance Office (FIO) narrowly defined.
Now, the
PIA National EVP & CEO Leonard Brevik says having the FIO conduct its own study on the breadth of its regulatory reach creates an inherent conflict of interest. “Federal bureaucrats should not be conducting a study on whether or not their own powers should be expanded, and then making recommendations to Congress based on a study that they alone conducted,” Brevik says. “It assures a biased result because it asks federal regulators if they believe in federal regulation. Of course their answer will be ‘yes.’ Congress needs to defund this Trojan horse for federal expansion and encroachment.”
Brevik added that any study needs to be objective in order for it to be credible, suggesting that should either be conducted by a nonpartisan entity such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO), if at all.
“It is clear that the Obama Administration is claiming an overly broad mandate for the FIO that is in direct conflict with the law,” adds PIA National President Fred Thomas. “That’s why it is critical that this office not be permitted to conduct studies and make policy recommendations to Congress, because it is clearly biased and will recommend that a vast new federal insurance bureaucracy be created. Congress needs to nip this in the bud right now.”
