A group of 40 Democratic senators is calling on Senate leaders to ensure that any final appropriations measure does not include a provision making the CFPB subject to the annual appropriations process.
“Independent funding for the CFPB is critical for the agency to continue vigorously enforcing consumer protection laws without any political interference,” the senators wrote to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve Board. The agency receives funds when the Director requests money from the Fed. This week, Acting Director Mick Mulvaney said he did not need any money from the Fed for the second quarter of FY18 because the bureau had sufficient reserves to fund the agency.
Banking regulators generally are not subject to the annual appropriations process. However, Republican opponents of the CFPB under former Director Richard Cordray said that the agency was unaccountable to anyone.
For several years, House Republicans have tried to convince the Senate to go along with the plan in passing large, omnibus funding measures, but the Senate generally has insisted on passing appropriations measures that do not contain such controversial legislative riders.
However, this year, Senate Republicans included CFPB funding in a draft of their FY19 Financial Services appropriations measure. That bill has not gone to the Senate floor and it is unlikely that it will.
Congress has been funding the federal government through a series of short-term Continuing Resolutions. Financial services funding is likely to be considered when Congress considers a longer-term measure funding the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The Democratic senators said the Trump Administration already is damaging the agency.
“The administration has already undermined the effectiveness of the CFPB by appointing Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as part-time Director of the Bureau,” they wrote. “Altering the funding stream of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would further jeopardize the agency and its ability to conduct independent investigations into financial wrongdoing.”
The 40 senators would be enough to block the Senate from considering such an appropriations measure, but it is unlikely they would do so on legislation funding the rest of the federal government.
Just this week, Mulvaney announced that the bureau will revisit its controversial rule to crack down on payday lenders and would solicit comments on many of the agency’s basic supervisory and enforcement functions.
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Update: 12:40 P.M., EST
In other CFPB news, Mulvaney on Friday disputed allegations from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that he was using phony data security concerns as a way to cripple the agency.
In a letter to Warren, Mulvaney said that prior to his being appointed acting director, there were 233 confirmed breaches of consumer personally identifiable information within the agency’s Consumer Response system.
In addition, there were 840 suspected breaches by financial institutions that were self-reported, but not confirmed, he said.
He said as recently as Nov. 13, the bureau found that it had published 101 narratives in its complaint database that contained names that should have been redacted.
He said that data collection has continued in instances where a “pause” would not allow the agency to perform its duties.
