On Thursday, March 9, the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy will present a hearing titled, "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Ripe for Reform [1]” at 9:00 a.m. Central.
Established by the Dodd-Frank Act after the 2008 global financial crisis, since its beginnings, the CFPB has recovered approximately $15 billion for customers, including a recent record $1.7 billion civil fine, in addition to $2 billion in mandated customer reimbursements, imposed by the CFPB on Wells Fargo for abuses related to customer accounts.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of funding for the CFPB [2]. In October of 2022, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Community Financial Services Association of America Ltd. (CFSA) v. CFPB that the Bureau’s funding model is unconstitutional, and instead should, be appropriated by Congress from the U.S. Treasury.
“As Republicans have said for years, the CFPB’s unconstitutional funding structure improperly insulates it from Americans’ representatives in Congress,” said Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Patrick McHenry [3]. “This problem is compounded when the Bureau is led by a rogue regulator, as it is now. Director Chopra is returning the CFPB to its Obama-era regulation by enforcement approach that harms both consumers and our economy. Republicans promised the American people we would restore accountability to the federal bureaucracy. The House Financial Services Committee is committed to delivering transparency with legislation like Congressman Barr’s TABS Act [4] to bring the unaccountable CFPB under the annual appropriations process.”
Rep. Andy Barr’s TABS Act (HR 790) is a bill drafted to make funding for the CFPB become part of the congressional appropriations process like virtually every other federal agency.
“For too long, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has operated unchecked and unaccountable to Congress,” said Rep. Barr. “Congressional oversight is essential in preventing the sort of political and regulatory overreaches as well as excessive spending that were commonplace at the Bureau in the Obama Administration.”
Click here [1] for more information on the House Financial Services Committee’s hearing, "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Ripe for Reform.”
Here's what else is happening in The Week Ahead:
- Fannie Mae's Refinance Application-Level Index [5] (RALI) (Tuesday)
- Senate Banking Committee: The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress [6] (Tuesday)
- Senate Banking Committee: The Federal Debt Limit and its Economic and Financial Consequences [7] (Tuesday)
- Senate Banking Committee: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness [8] (Wednesday)
- MBA Weekly Applications Survey [9] (Wednesday)
- Williston Financial Group's Quarterly Economic Outlook [10] (Wednesday)
- Realtor.com Weekly Housing Market Recap [11] (Wednesday)
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey [12] (Thursday)
- U.S. Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report [13] (Thursday)