The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will not be eliminated, according to court documents filed on behalf of the agency’s acting director Russell Vought.
The response to a lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employees Union quotes a letter from Vought to the Federal Reserve stating the “Bureau’s new leadership will run a substantially more streamlined and efficient bureau…the predicate to running a more streamlined and efficient bureau is that there will continue to be a CFPB.”
The court filing also points out that President Donald Trump has nominated Jonathan McKernan to become the new CFPB director. The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing for McKernan’s nomination at 10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 27. McKernan has served as a board member for the FDIC.
Ranking member of the committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to McKernan ahead of the hearing asking questions about the future of the agency. The Dodd-Frank Act Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed by Congress in 2010 created the CFPB. It was in reaction to the 2008 financial crisis.
Vought’s defense claims McKernan’s nomination is inconsistent with the plaintiff’s view of “a coordinated campaign by the administration to eliminate the CFPB.”
Vought was appointed as the acting director Feb. 7 and sent a letter to the Federal Reserve stating the CFPB would not be requesting funds for the third quarter of the fiscal year. He then sent an email to staff to pause activities.
