It’s been roughly a year since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank — the second-, third-, and fourth-largest bank failures by assets in US history — and yet very little has changed. Not only did Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s post-2016 regulatory rollbacks and supervisory blunders contribute significantly to the 2023 banking crisis, his current opposition to stronger capital requirements is setting the stage for the next crisis.

The number of banks on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)’s “Problem Bank List” grew by nearly 20 percent in the final quarter of 2023 (from forty-four to fifty-two), the largest uptick since the failure of SVB. In addition, credit card and commercial real estate loan delinquencies reached their highest level in nearly a decade, portending additional turmoil. Indeed, during his semiannual testimony before Congress a few weeks ago, Powell predicted that “there will be bank failures” generated by commercial real estate losses.

Despite that, Powell is actively hindering the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen capital requirements for approximately three dozen of the nation’s biggest banks. At issue are draft rules proposed in July by the Fed, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) that would require banks with at least $100 billion in assets to increase their capital reserves to protect against losses.