'Prevents Congress From Conducting Meaningful Oversight': Bill Huizenga Slams Structure Of CFPB

2 days ago

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) questioned witnesses about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's internal structures.

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Transcript

00:00Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Chairman, I see Mr. Chopra has surrounded himself with

00:06like-minded activists, and I quite honestly never thought I would pine for the days of

00:12Richard Cordray to have some reasonableness injected into the CFPB.

00:19But the CFPB's unique structure prevents Congress from conducting meaningful oversight.

00:25I know this because last session I was chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee,

00:32and I know too well the roadblocks and speed bumps and, frankly, brick walls we ran into

00:40with the CFPB.

00:41A single director who has no accountability, no boundaries, limitless funding, and will

00:48go and push the accepted and legal bounds of their organization is a recipe for disaster,

00:56and I think that's why we've seen this one agency be challenged so much over its own

01:02existence and its actions.

01:05And unlike other agencies, such as the FDIC, the Fed, the alphabet soup of all the regulators

01:12who paused their rulemaking after President Trump was elected, Director Chopra made the

01:18very conscious decision to continue to push forward on rules that he knew would be unlawful

01:25and overturned.

01:26And you saw it with the overdraft, you saw it with medical debt.

01:29He was the one regulator that decided to not put his pen down and allow someone else to

01:37make some of those decisions.

01:38So, Mr. Pomeroy, in your written testimony, you called the Bureau a, quote, a political

01:44lightning rod that can have, quote, radical pendulum shifts, depending on who occupies

01:50the White House.

01:51And it just seems, my observation would be, it seems most of the time when it's the Republicans

01:56that they come in and say, hold on, we've gone too far too fast.

02:00Let's just stop in place while the Democrats just continue to blow through these legal

02:06bounds.

02:07Anyway, the idea of converting them into a commission structure isn't a new concept.

02:12I've been here for now, this is my year 15, and I think for 15 years this has been a discussion

02:20because there's a recognition of the dangers of this structure.

02:24So, what advantages do you see with changing that structure?

02:29Well, I mean, we're at a critical point in time, right?

02:32There's an inflection point here where we can make the Bureau more credible, more durable

02:36going forward.

02:37We believe that a five-person commission, a bipartisan commission, would allow for the

02:41aforementioned dissent and debate that's required to actually form the policies, taking some

02:47of the political ideology.

02:48Which is the structure that virtually every other regulator, SEC, others, they all have

02:54internal checks and balances, not CFPB.

02:56CFPB does not.

03:00Is it important to have industry experience when you're leading this?

03:04We believe so.

03:05It's good to have the background of industry and how products and services actually work.

03:10Oftentimes they're misunderstood.

03:11Okay.

03:12Well, so this is a structure that Mr. Barr and I have talked about.

03:16Do you believe that the CFPB can and will actually still protect consumers with this

03:24new structure?

03:25I believe so.

03:26The CFPB has a statutory required duties that it has to carry out.

03:30I don't think having a commission structure is going to-

03:33So wait a minute.

03:34Just because we've changed president doesn't mean we've automatically thrown out consumer

03:37protection?

03:38That's what we hear from the other side.

03:39That's correct.

03:40Okay.

03:41I just wanted to clarify that.

03:44That doesn't seem to be the narrative.

03:46Okay.

03:47Well, basically, essentially, enforcement has become arbitrary.

03:53The current bureau sends a signal to industry that the bureau will let you know when you've

03:59violated the law or harmed consumers because they've given themselves that broad authority.

04:04Not that Congress has, not that anybody else has, but they now suddenly are through enforcement

04:10letters and other things, they are bending the will of the law to what they view as what

04:17is proper.

04:18By the way, CFPB can't actually give a clear, consistent, definitive definition to the term

04:25abusive regarding unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts of practice.

04:31Is there anything that is considered abusive that is not considered unfair or deceptive?

04:37That is unclear at this point.

04:40It would seem like a layman would actually be able to discern that, but we're talking

04:43about legalese, right?

04:45Without the guidance from the former administration under Director Kraninger, we do not have a

04:49definitive definition of abusive.

04:51Yeah.

04:52All right.

04:53We've got a few seconds.

04:54Ms. Fonseca, I'm sorry, I'm running out of time, but community financial institutions

04:59are often caught in crosshairs, and we know about the cost of compliance.

05:03If the CFPB has its way, and I'd like to take your answer in writing if I could, but if

05:08CFPB has its way, what would the cost of eliminating or reducing overdraft products have on consumers

05:14that you serve?

05:15And I look forward to having that answer in writing, so thank you.

05:17Okay, thank you.

05:18The gentleman's time has expired.

05:19The gentleman's time has expired.

'Prevents Congress From Conducting Meaningful Oversight': Bill Huizenga Slams Structure Of CFPB

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