House Republicans are considering legislation that would restructure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a way that allows the president to fire the agency’s director at will. Banking groups, however, are mostly in favor of taking a different approach: forming a bipartisan commission to lead the CFPB, MorningConsult.com reported today. GOP lawmakers who are angling to roll back key aspects of Dodd-Frank have shifted their stance on the consumer agency, a longtime target of GOP efforts to overhaul the 2010 law. Legislation introduced in September by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) would have changed the CFPB’s leadership from a single director to a bipartisan commission. But a revamped version of that bill, known as the Financial CHOICE Act, is expected to propose having a single director who the president can fire at will. “In the CHOICE Act, we want to have the director serve at the will of the president,” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, said earlier this month. However, several banking industry leaders are holding fast to the bipartisan commission plan. “We continue to believe that a commission style of governance for the CFPB would result in better regulation,” Francis Creighton, executive vice president of government affairs at Financial Services Roundtable, said last week.
