U.S. SENATORS KATIE BRITT, TIM SCOTT, COLLEAGUES LEAD BICAMERAL AMICUS BRIEF CHALLENGING CFPB’S FUNDING STRUCTURE

Washington, D.C., August 11, 2023 – U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) recently joined Ranking Member Tim Scott (R-S.C.) of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.-10) of the House Financial Services Committee, Representative Andy Barr (R-Ky.-06), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy, Representative Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.-04), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and a bicameral group of 132 members of Congress in filing an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, et al., v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited, et al.

The brief urges the Court to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding structure is unconstitutional and to make the Bureau’s funding subject to congressional appropriations.

“The Constitution clearly grants Congress power over the appropriations process. The CFPB should be no exception but has been operating outside of this lawful process with little oversight or taxpayer accountability,” said Senator Britt. “This amicus brief reaffirms the importance of spending public funds as directed by Congress and ‘not according to the individual favor of Government agents.’ The current funding scheme utilized by the CFPB is unsustainable and unconstitutional, and I urge the Court to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision.”

The brief states, “The Court need not determine which particular aspect of the CFPB’s funding scheme is the most problematic. This is the easy case. The CFPB ‘is in an entirely different league’ from other entities when it comes to its insulation from Congress… to the point that the CFPB currently operates as ‘a sort of junior-varsity Congress’ setting its own funding levels in perpetuity… Such insulation means that Congress itself is not determining the CFPB’s funding. The Court should affirm the judgment below, which will return the matter of the CFPB’s funding to the normal political and legislative channels, as Article I and the Appropriations Clause require.”

Read the brief here.

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