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Long-awaited Pearl River flood control project moves forward

People don’t set down roots and invest in communities where they feel that they’re at risk,” Jackson Mayor John Horhn said. Pearl Mayor Jake Windham noted that it is typically the poorest residents who are affected most by the flooding. A project that looks to protect the City of Jackson and the surrounding area from flooding by the Pearl River is moving to the next phase.  Elected officials and concerned residents gathered Thursday morning near the Pearl River Bridge along Highway 80 to hear from representatives of the Pearl River Revitalization Coalition. The coalition is comprised of various private and public institutions and organizations focused on flood protection in the central Mississippi region. The group announced that Secretary Adam Telle, the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has selected a project design that will bring long-awaited flood control and community benefits to Mississippi’s Capital Region. 
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Mississippi should look to President Trump and Congress to ensure fair access to banking


 

  • David Ibsen says HB 1597 is unnecessary and would add additional confusion and regulation that could harm Mississippi consumers and smaller community banks.

The Mississippi economy functions best when its residents have ready and fair access to financial services. It’s how Mississippi businesses ensure steady cashflow and make payroll, places of worship process and store charitable donations, and how Mississippi nonprofits manage the dollars that fund programs for the community. Banking is an essential service for all Mississippians.

This session, lawmakers in Jackson are considering House Bill 1597 in order to address a concern regarding government driven “debanking” which entails the closure or limitation of bank accounts or services for disfavored political or religious reasons. Mississippi lawmakers are well intentioned in their desire to protect Mississippi residents. However, President Trump and Congress are already working to address government driven banking by taking action to rein in the politicized regulators who have taken advantage of our vague, outdated policies to pressure banks to close certain accounts.

Given these positive and decisive actions, this Mississippi proposal is unnecessary and would add additional confusion and regulation that could harm Mississippi consumers and smaller community banks. Americans need a cohesive, clear and consistent federal approach that works in all 50 states, not a patchwork of state-by-state requirements that complicate national banking operations and harms consumers.

Under the Obama and Biden administrations, regulatory agencies used ambiguous standards and outdated laws to pressure banks into debanking customers based on their political affiliations or beliefs. To ensure this doesn’t happen again, President Trump issued an executive order to ensure fair access to banking that restricted the use of so called “reputational risk” as a regulatory supervision metric. Congress and the U.S. Treasury are now working to codify this principle into permanent law to find a long-term fix.

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