Jefferson Reporter

U.S. Senators Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), members of the Senate Appropriations and Banking Committees, have introduced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Accountability Act. The legislation aims to make the agency accountable to the American public by requiring that its funding be appropriated by Congress, similar to other Executive Branch agencies.

Currently, the Federal Reserve is mandated to provide whatever funding the CFPB requests within certain limits, an arrangement that allows the CFPB to bypass fiscal accountability applicable to other parts of the Executive Branch.

“The CFPB has continued to operate as a partisan, rogue regulator, acting far outside of its congressional mandate and without any true accountability to Congress,” said Senator Britt. “This commonsense legislation would ensure the Bureau is held accountable to the American people by subjecting it to the congressional appropriations process.”

Senator Hagerty echoed these sentiments: “The CFPB must be required to go through the regular congressional appropriations process to ensure public accountability. As a lifelong businessman, protecting consumers in the financial marketplace is important, but handing vast government regulatory power to an agency that is not accountable to the American people’s elected representatives is unacceptable. Americans deserve to have far greater input in this agency.”

Additional cosponsors of the bill include Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Senators Kevin Cramer (R-N.Dak.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Mike Rounds (R-S.Dak.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).