“…what is actually radical is the current leadership structure of the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]. It is unlike any other found in the Federal bureaucracy. The CFPB director serves for a fixed term, and therefore is exempt from presidential control; exercises sole authority over the agency; and has the singular power to spend hundreds of millions of dollars outside the congressional appropriations process. Although some regulatory bodies have some of these features, no other entity in Federal government combines all of them.”
—Rep. Spencer Bachus, House Financial Services Committee Chairman
Rep. Bachus made the statement during the consideration of three bills yesterday by a House Financial Services subcommittee. Bachus made a larger statement of support for the bills, which passed through the subcommittee yesterday, and aim to restrict the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s power. One such bill favors a five-member bipartisan commission rather than the director structure that the bureau would have under Dodd-Frank.
While the bills will now advance, it is speculated that they will not pass through the Senate.
View Bachus’s full statement.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
