[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 5, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1508-S1510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, today's vote on this Congressional Review
Act resolution could not be more straightforward: Vote yes if you want
more Americans to get scammed. Vote no if you don't.
Vote yes if you want Elon Musk to have a get-out-of-jail-free card
when he scams people on xMoney. Vote no if you don't.
Three-quarters of Americans use digital payment platforms like Venmo
and Cash App, and reports of scams on those sites have skyrocketed.
So CFPB investigated and then stepped in with a new rule to help
prevent this fraud. The CFPB's rule also helps protect consumer
privacy, and it combats deep banking on these platforms.
Now, ask any American how much they like getting scammed and whether
they think there should be stronger protections against it. Listen to
how angry people get over these scams.
Look, nobody wants to be scammed, and no one wants fewer protections
against getting scammed. In fact, the only people who want weaker rules
against scamming are the guys who run the scams, and that may explain
why Elon Musk is hoping that the Senate kills this new rule today
because Elon's new xMoney digital payment platform would be subject to
CFPB review.
Elon wants to take the cop off the beat. He wants what amounts to a
``get out of jail free for Elon'' card, and that is what the vote today
would actually give him.
Look, I think it is pretty clear what Elon's play is here. He wasn't
very subtle when he tweeted ``CFPB RIP.'' The next thing you know, his
DOGE team then locks the CFPB staff out of their own building. That was
act one.
Now is act two: He wants Congress to block this CFPB rule.
Now, what will Elon get out of it if the rule is blocked? Well, he
will get a clear runway for his payment app without having to worry
about whether there is a cop on the financial beat who would catch him
if he rips off customers who use his new app.
But this is really a three-part play, not just a two part play. Act
one was closing down the CFPB so that the financial cops were shut out,
at least for a while. Act two is the part we see now, with Elon rolling
back a rule that, when cops are back on the beat, a financial cop could
use that rule to go after Elon if he breaks the law.
Act three comes next week, when Republicans try to move forward with
legislation that will clear the decks for Elon to issue xMoney as his
own stablecoin, without any guardrails to protect consumers, to protect
national security, or to protect the financial stability of our
economy.
Put simply, Republicans are setting the stage for the richest man in
the world to issue his own currency that competes with the U.S. dollar.
Act one protected all the scammers. Act two protects the cash app
scammers, in particular. And act three, as currently drafted, will roll
out the red carpet for Elon and Jeff and Mark and maybe a few other Big
Tech billionaires to seize control of our money and payments, which
underpins the entire economy.
So the question is, Will Congress go along? Will Congress protect
Americans from getting cheated out of their money? Or will Congress
give Elon Musk a get-out-of-jail-free card so he can scam whoever he
wants to scam and know that the CFPB can't touch him?
Look, this may feel like just one more vote on a busy day, but
rewarding Elon Musk and a handful of billionaires will mean real cons
go forward in this country.
I urge my colleagues to vote no.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to talk about
the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in defending
typical Americans against scams and multinational banks. This Agency's
entire purpose is standing up for regular people as a watchdog against
the powerful and the corrupt.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are attempting to close the CFPB, and they
are demonstrating their priorities. They have systematically kneecapped
every part of the government that can stand in the way of their spree
of looting the government to make themselves and their wealthy friends
even wealthier. This unlawful freeze threatens Oregonians' economic
opportunity and our country's economic stability.
Donald Trump pledged to the American people to level the playing
field and lower prices. His actions and the actions of many of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle do the opposite.
Just yesterday, my office heard from veterans who served our country
and now go to college in Oregon. These are brave young people who are
not wealthy. They shared details about how veterans routinely face
predatory, for-profit, fake colleges that just want to target their
post-9/11 GI benefits. If not for the work of the CFPB, many young
veterans would have been robbed of tens of thousands of dollars each in
earned benefits.
My constituents shared that they are really worried about what is
going to happen in terms of our student veterans if Donald Trump and
Elon Musk succeed in shuttering the CFPB. Either Donald Trump and Elon
Musk didn't know that the CFPB has an entire office dedicated to
protecting veterans and servicemembers from bad actors. Or possibly,
they just didn't care.
Since the Bureau's start just 13 years ago, it has returned over $21
billion to
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consumers, and through its oversight, it has prevented billions more in
losses.
In a choice between fraudsters and scamsters and those who serve our
Nation in uniform, Donald Trump and Elon Musk protected the fraudsters
and the scamsters by illegally sending CFPB staff home and freezing the
Agency's work.
Now my Republican colleagues are attempting to repeal the CFPB rule
that protects consumers from frauds and scams on payment apps like
Venmo. Under this rule, the CFPB would be allowed to look at the books
of payment apps to ensure they are following the law.
This rule doesn't impose new requirements on these services like
Venmo. This type of supervision is important to stop illegal activity
before it is too late. In the case of payment apps, this supervision is
crucial to combat frauds and scams.
Frauds and scams on payment apps are only getting more common, so why
are my colleagues pushing to overturn the rule now? Republicans are
trying to roll back the rule. I am sure it has nothing to do with the
fact that Elon Musk wants to start a payments app. That is a lot harder
to do when you have to follow any pesky laws or rules. And anybody who
has used the site formerly known as Twitter recently knows that Elon
Musk doesn't seem to care about the proliferation of fraud or scams.
Trump, Musk, and my colleagues across the aisle seem to be working to
destroy the CFPB because it enforces consumer protection and data
privacy laws, which I have been working to strengthen.
Elon Musk has already trampled into Americans' sensitive data at the
IRS. It should be clear to all of us by now that Elon Musk, Donald
Trump, and the rest of this billionaire crowd seem to have no regard
for the law or for the Constitution.
Those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and
a fairer economy really ought to be concerned about what I have just
described this economic sabotage. And anybody who plays by the rules
has a right as well to feel betrayed by Trump and Musk's contempt for
the rule of law.
I am glad to be here with my colleagues to blow the whistle on Trump
and the Republicans' dangerous and chaotic agenda and to work with
Senator Warren, who has led the effort on this issue for so many years.
I will vote to oppose this resolution. I urge my colleagues to do the
same.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to this
resolution disapproving of the CFPB's rule defining larger participants
of a market for general-use digital consumer payment applications,
which will make consumers more susceptible to fraud. In November, the
CFPB published a rule to extend oversight over Big Tech companies that
offer mobile payments and digital wallets. Companies like Cash App,
Venmo, Google, and Apple now handle billions of dollars in consumer
transactions per year. Everyone knows someone who has either been
defrauded or scammed on one of these applications, and everyone also
knows how difficult it can be to get your money back, even if your
savings get wiped out.
The CFPB took a very sensible approach to update our financial
regulations to address this problem. The CFPB's rule places big tech
companies that handle your money under Federal oversight in order to
make sure they are following the law. If these big tech companies want
to act like banks, then they should be subject to similar consumer
protection requirements as banks. Under the CFPB's rule, someone is
making sure consumers actually get reimbursed when they are victims of
fraud. It means that fraudsters are having a harder time stealing
people's savings, and it means greater protection against sophisticated
scammers that are hacking people's phone and email accounts.
If this resolution is adopted, there is no going back. It will
preclude the CFPB from adopting substantially similar consumer
protections in the future. Big Tech will operate under its own rules,
and consumers will be vulnerable.
And it is no coincidence that this CRA vote comes only 1 month after
Elon Musk announced that he would be starting his own digital payment
company--what a coincidence. A vote in favor of this resolution is a
vote to strip Federal oversight of Elon Musk's payment company. It is a
vote to make it easier for Elon Musk to shirk his obligation to
reimburse the American people when they are cheated out of their money
on his platform. Elon Musk wins; the American people lose.
I hope my Republican colleagues will join us to protect this
eminently sensible rule, and I urge my colleagues to oppose his
resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau is at its core a law enforcement agency. Congress established
the CFPB 15 years ago to protect Americans from fraud, from getting
ripped off by banks and credit card companies, financial institutions.
Today's Republican-led resolution weakens the CFPB's ability to
protect consumers as part of a broader effort by the administration to
shut down consumer protections entirely.
Now let's take a minute to go back in time to the time before the
CFPB existed, right before the 2008 financial meltdown. Back then,
abusive fees and misleading disclosures meant that Coloradans paid more
for mortgages, more for credit cards, and more for student loans. Fly-
by-night lenders made massive profits by targeting vulnerable families
with excessively high-cost loans, turning credit from a tool for
opportunity into a tool for scams.
Financial scammers could all too easily slip through the cracks in
oversight. There just wasn't enough oversight. In some cases, there was
no oversight. Our neighbors were getting hit with hidden fees and
frauds when they took out a mortgage, when they used a credit card, if
they were just paying for school. There was no cop on the beat.
The result? By 2008, years of this shady, abusive practice helped
spark a devastating global financial crisis. Six million households
lost their homes to foreclosure, and a quarter of our families lost 75
percent of their wealth. Americans lost faith in our financial system.
In 2010, Congress created the CFPB to help make sure this could never
happen again. Congress gave it a simple job: to protect Americans from
getting ripped off. The Bureau cleaned up mortgage markets, debt
collection, student loans, and much, much more. It worked to protect
veterans and servicemembers.
Fast-forward to today, and the CFPB's results really speak for
themselves. The Bureau has delivered $20 billion--that is billion
dollars with a ``b''--back to Americans through its enforcement
actions. It has brought relief to 200 million Americans and small
businesses facing scams or abusive practices.
In Colorado, nearly 67,000 people have sought help from CFPB,
including more than 6,200 servicemembers. Thousands of those complaints
led to relief for consumers.
It really is a remarkable track record--that is, until it was decided
by Republicans to--well, they want to eliminate many of these
protections, if not all of them.
This vote today would unwind protections designed for the modern
financial system, for the everyday payment apps we all use like Venmo
or PayPal. It would allow some of the largest financial firms in a
consumer's life to stay in the shadows, to operate outside of any
oversight. That is exactly the approach to consumer protection we had
20 years ago, before the CFPB, before the 2008 financial crisis.
This is but the latest attempt to leave consumers vulnerable to
scams. In fact, the Trump administration is trying--I think many people
believe illegally--to abolish the CFPB entirely. They fired dedicated
staff who protect consumers, they canceled the lease on the CFPB's
office, and they literally ordered a total shutdown of the Agency--an
unprecedented effort to defy Congress.
[[Page S1510]]
The administration believes that the CFPB doesn't deserve to exist.
Maybe they think that scammers and fraudsters have finally hung it up
and have gone to find honest work, but I think the American people know
better. The administration wants to take our economy back to the time
before the financial crisis of 2009, with weaker protections and no one
looking out for consumers. If the Trump administration gets its way, it
is clear who the winners will be--loan sharks, shady mortgage
companies, junk-fee merchants. The losers will be the rest of America--
any Coloradan who wants a fair deal on a credit card or a mortgage.
Bottom line: More money in the pocket of fraudsters, scammers, and
the unscrupulous; less for the little guy to save.
I urge my colleagues to stand up for American consumers and vote no
on this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The Senator from Connecticut.