The House Financial Services Committee is considering several bills to change Wall Street reform today, including changing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a move the White House is quick to fight back on.
Jeffrey Zients, director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, published a blog on the White House’s website, trying to refute any plan to change the CFPB, along with two other deals on the table.
These bills include efforts at the behest of Wall Street to undermine the people’s watchdog — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB); an attack on American families’ retirement security by blocking the proposed Conflict of Interest Rule; and a step backward on transparency and accountability for public firms’ CEO compensation.
The main issue related to housing that the blog addresses is running the CFPB by Commission.
Today, the Committee is considering a provision to install a commission structure at the CFPB, instead of a Director. Opponents of the CFPB view a commission structure as a maneuver designed to tie the CFPB in knots, limiting the Bureau’s effectiveness. Congress designed the CFPB to respond rapidly to changing market conditions and to react quickly to new threats to consumers and determined the CFPB would operate most effectively with a single leader.
Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB, sat in front of the House Financial Services Committee for his semi-annual report Tuesday morning, facing attacks from Republicans and paeans from Democrats.
Now one day later, the White House is showing where it stands on the issue.
