Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger said that she is pressing ahead with a revised payday lending rule despite criticism from Senate Democrats who accused the CFPB’s political appointees of interfering with the rule-making process, according to a letter obtained by Morning Consult from Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-Ohio) office. “Upon my determination, the Bureau will issue a final rule on the basis of the record before the agency,” Kraninger wrote in the letter, dated Monday. “And upon that basis, I will defend the agency’s action.” The letter answers one dated May 4 sent by Brown, the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking member, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Senate Democrats that asked the CFPB to stop work on revamping an Obama-era payday lending rule that would unwind a provision that requires lenders to determine if borrowers have the ability to repay a loan. The agency had expected to revise the rule by the end of April, but it hasn’t yet been issued. The rule-making process drew fresh scrutiny from the Democratic senators after The New York Times reported April 29 that a career economist at the agency had alleged in a memo that political appointees at the agency had manipulated the agency’s research to support the revamp of the 2017 payday lending rule. The memo also said Trump administration appointees had pressured staff economists to alter their findings to underplay harm to consumers if the payday rule was changed.
