The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may finally gain some basic requirements of accountability and transparency, as Congress moves forward with a significant rewrite of Dodd-Frank rules, according to an opinion today from The Hill. The law tasked the CFPB with supervising depository institutions with more than $10 billion in assets, and has supervisory powers over some other financial services. Established as an independent executive agency, the CFPB’s structure has always been constitutionally suspect. Congress is moving forward on the Financial CHOICE Act, which would subject CFPB to the congressional appropriations process, reasserting the democratic accountability the agency has lacked since its inception. It also would change the bureau's mandate to both uphold consumer protection and ensure competitive markets by charging the CFPB with performing cost-benefit analyses for the rules it promulgates. The bill "would end the anti-constitutional direct grab from public funds which was originally granted to the CFPB — and which was designed precisely to evade the democratic power of the purse." By focusing its energies on enforcing consumer protection statutes and ensuring competitive markets, the Choice Act would streamline the Bureau’s functions. It also would reverse the original mistake of seizing power from the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and state financial services regulators, who already provided adequate supervision of these areas. The CHOICE Act would improve accountability by restructuring the bureau as an executive branch agency and making its director removable by the president at will.
