Supreme Court justices yesterday appeared skeptical of the payday lending industry's challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure in a case that President Joe Biden's administration has said imperils an agency set up to curb predatory lending after the 2008 global financial crisis, Reuters reported. The justices heard arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court's ruling that the CFPB's funding mechanism, established when Congress passed Democratic-backed legislation in 2010 creating the agency, violated a constitutional provision giving lawmakers the power of the purse. The agency, which enforces consumer financial laws, draws money each year from the U.S. Federal Reserve rather than budgets passed by Congress. It was the first of several cases the justices are tackling during their new nine-month term, which began on Monday, that could curb the power of federal agencies. Questions posed by the court's three liberal justices and at least two of the six conservative justices — Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — signaled doubt over the argument by the challengers that the CFPB's funding design violates the U.S. Constitution's "appropriations clause," which vests spending authority in Congress.
