The House voted Today to change how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is managed by passing legislation to install a five-member oversight panel to run the new agency instead of a single director.
The 241-173 vote – which came on the one-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill will make it easier to overturn regulations imposed by the bureau.
That doesn’t sound like a very good solution, but I guess we will have to see at this point.
Congressional Republicans were happy with the prospect of the five-member commission stating one director is too powerful and not accountable.
Freshmen Rep. Sean Duffy stated, The CFPB “is going to work on the behalf of consumers. It is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. My bill gives a voice to Main Street America.”
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) stated
I really am just amazed at the hyperbole of the dismantling and the ruining of the agency and the weakening of the agency. The bureau will go forward with all of the consumer protections that it is empowered with in the Dodd-Frank bill.
The administration argued that the five-member commission, in lieu of a single director, would hamper the bureau’s decision-making power.
On Monday, Obama nominated former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to be the bureau’s new director. But Senate Republicans have vowed to block any nominee until the agency is overhauled. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bureau must be made “more accountable and transparent” before the GOP will allow Cordray’s nomination to proceed.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) stated on the floor,
We do not need a watchdog without any bite. Let’s keep the bite in the CFPB.
We will how this affects the enforcement of Dodd-Frank, especially when it comes down to the C&R issues. As for now, business as usual.
