Claudia Tenney
Rep. Claudia Tenney

Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-22), member of the House Financial Services Committee, urged newly appointed Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney to bring accountability and oversight to the CFPB.

“No agency in the history of our nation has been structured like the CFPB. Despite a title that implies the safeguarding of consumers, throughout the past seven years, the agency has been riddled with rampant abuses of power, unaccountable spending and a severe lack of oversight. An agency that employs nearly 1,500 unelected bureaucrats must be subject to the same oversight measures as any other federal agency,” said Tenney. “The CFPB unilaterally issues regulations that affect millions of consumers and businesses throughout the country, but it has the power to spend money and regulate without oversight from Congress, the President or the Federal Reserve. For example, under the rule of former CFPB Director Richard Cordray, the CFPB used $215 million in taxpayer dollars to install a four-story glass staircase, two-story waterfall and expand the size of offices in a building the agency does not even own.”

In 2010, President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which enabled this agency to act without any significant degree of Congressional oversight. Under the CFPB’s current structure, one single director heads the agency. Nearly all regulatory agencies operate under a multi-member board or bipartisan commissions to ensure checks and balances are in place. The CFPB does not.

Earlier this year, the D.C. Court of Appeals declared the Bureau’s structure unconstitutional, as the unelected director “enjoys more unilateral authority than any other officer in any of the three branches of government of the U.S. Government, other than the President.”

The CFPB issues regulations that impact consumers and businesses throughout the nation. These rules are often implemented without input, comment or participation from the general public.

“The CFPB is unaccountable to Congress and the American people. New leadership brings a new opportunity to ensure that the CFPB is subject to rules that all other federal agencies comply with.  I am sure that Acting Director Mulvaney will work to bring a culture of accountability and oversight to this agency that has the important task of protecting American consumers,” said Tenney.

Appointed by President Trump over the weekend, Acting Director Mick Mulvaney is the rightful acting director until nomination of a new director and confirmation by the United States Senate. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 states that the President can appoint any open vacancy, as he did in this case.

By martha

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