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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants to limit a federal consumer regulator’s ability to independently oversee financial firms by placing the agency under congressional and White House oversight.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau interim head Mick Mulvaney, who also serves as President Donald Trump’s budget chief, asked Congress on Monday to pursue a sweeping plan that would give the executive and legislative branches control over the bureau’s regulations, leadership and budget. The changes would be a major departure from the CFPB’s current structure, which gives it broad latitude to oversee consumer financial products without interference from Congress or the White House.
The bureau, created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, should have to obtain approval from Congress for any major new rule and have its budget approved by legislators, Mulvaney recommended in a CFPB report to Congress. “The bureau is far too powerful, and with precious little oversight of its activities,” he said in his first semiannual report on the CFPB to Congress.
The proposal faces long odds of clearing Congress, where lawmakers have been unable to agree on whether to alter the CFPB’s structure or regulatory powers.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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