[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 186 (Tuesday, December 6, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S8346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, later this week the Senate will vote 
on whether the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should move 
forward with a director before addressing concerns that have been 
raised about the bureau's lack of transparency or accountability to the 
American people.
  I understand through press reports that the President plans to make a 
big push for this nominee to the CFPB. Let me tell my colleagues 
something the President hasn't done when it comes to this position: In 
the 7 months since 44 Republicans sent the President a letter outlining 
some very serious and very reasonable concerns about it, he hasn't done 
a thing to address these concerns--not one thing. If he picked up the 
phone to talk these issues over with anybody in our conference, I 
haven't heard about it. If he has put some thought into how he could 
ensure the perfectly legitimate concerns we raised in that letter are 
addressed, he hasn't let us in on the game plan.
  Here is what we asked for in that letter, which has now been signed 
by 45 Republican Senators--not 44, 45: All we asked for before we vote 
to confirm anybody to run the CFPB--regardless of their party 
affiliation, regardless of who the President is--are three clear, 
simple, commonsense reforms that would make sure this new agency is 
accountable to the American people.
  No. 1, replace the single director with a board of directors that 
would oversee the bureau. Under the deeply flawed Dodd-Frank bill, the 
Director of the CFPB, by design, is set to lead one of the least 
accountable and most powerful agencies in Washington. What we are 
saying is no single person who is unaccountable to the American people 
should have that much power. We are asking for the same structure as 
the SEC, the CFTC, the FDIC, the FTC, the NLRB, and the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission--the same structure we use anytime we give 
unelected bureaucrats new powers that need to be checked to protect 
against abuse.
  No. 2, subject the bureau to the congressional appropriations 
process. Subject this new CFPB to the congressional appropriations 
process. Currently, the CFPB is housed at the Federal Reserve and 
funded through a percentage of their annual budget, giving it a funding 
stream that is completely unique in government, entirely without a 
check from the American people and making it one of the least 
transparent agencies in Washington. If one likes the level of 
accountability over at the Fed, one will love the CFPB.
  A journalist who wanted some information about the Fed's lending 
practices recently had to sue to find it out. This is information not 
even Congress could have gotten on its own.
  If my colleagues ask me, the American people should be getting more 
transparency out of this administration, not less. We don't need any 
more unelected, unaccountable czars in Washington.
  No. 3, we asked for a safety and soundness check for the prudential 
financial regulators who oversee the safety and soundness of financial 
institutions. This would help ensure that we are not inadvertently 
causing bank failures through excessive regulations.
  Our proposal would do nothing more than give congressional committees 
a proper level of oversight and accountability over this new bureau and 
ensure that its decisions were subject to the checks and balances that 
were meant to be inherent in our system--something we owe the American 
people.
  Everybody supports strong and effective consumer protection, but the 
CFPB, in its current form, cannot stand. In its current form, the CFPB 
could easily be used for political purposes at the expense of access to 
credit, job creation, economic growth, and financial stability.
  What is needed is transparency and accountability. That is all we 
have asked for, and the President has done nothing to address these 
concerns. Instead, he has ignored these perfectly legitimate concerns, 
and now he is suddenly making a push to confirm his nominee because it 
fits into some picture he wants to paint about who the good guys and 
the bad guys are in Washington.
  So once again he has used the Senate floor this week to stage a 
little political theater. He is setting up a vote he knows will fail so 
he can show up afterward and say he is shocked. This is what passes for 
leadership right now in the White House, and it is truly unfortunate.
  Look, we all believe Americans need access to financial products that 
are not rigged against them. We just think nobody should be above 
oversight, including the overseers. We do not think a bureau designed 
to watch Wall Street should have the ability to squeeze out hiring on 
Main Street. Frankly, the President's refusal to even consider our 
calls for oversight and transparency only serve to deepen our concerns 
about this agency. So, once again, we call on the President to take 
these concerns seriously and work with us on achieving something 
positive.
  The fact is the CFPB needs a drastic overhaul before any nominee can 
be confirmed. This will not come as a surprise to anybody at the White 
House, and our doors remain open.

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