U.S. Senators Katie Britt, Bill Hagerty, Colleagues Reintroduce Bill to Subject the CFPB to Regular Congressional Appropriation Process

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 17, 2024 – U.S. Senators Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), members of the Senate Appropriations and Banking Committees, last week introduced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Accountability Act.

The legislation would make the agency accountable to the American people by requiring that its funding be appropriated by Congress, as is the case for other Executive Branch agencies.

Currently, the Federal Reserve is required to provide whatever funding that the CFPB requests within certain limits, a highly unusual arrangement that allows the CFPB to avoid the fiscal accountability to which the rest of the Executive Branch is subject.

“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.”

“The CFPB must be required to go through the regular congressional appropriations process to ensure public accountability,” said Senator Hagerty. “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.).

Read the full text of the bill here.

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