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A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has urged the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to overhaul a draft rule that would govern access to the U.S. government’s first beneficial-ownership registry.

In a six-page letter to the bureau Wednesday, Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote that FinCEN’s proposed “access rule,” published in December, “inappropriately” limits banks’ ability to use the database for ongoing suspicious activity monitoring and sanctions-screenings purposes.

Senators echoed concerns previously voiced by banking industry groups, transparency advocates and others that the bureau’s proposal narrowly limits financial institutions’ ability to use the database and in doing so, deviates from the intent of the Corporate Transparency Act, the 2021 legislation that mandated the creation of the registry.

“Financial institutions may continue to struggle to screen customers against sanctions lists if they are forbidden from accessing the BOI [beneficial ownership information] directory for that purpose,” the lawmakers wrote. “This undermines the law and should be changed.”