[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 5, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1520-S1521]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              S.J. Res. 28

  Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues who 
yesterday voted to proceed on my Congressional Review Act to undo the 
eleventh-hour regulation that the Biden administration put through the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would have greatly expanded 
the powers of the CFPB to start regulating payment systems as opposed 
to just the banking system that it was really designed to do.
  I appreciate some of my colleagues' votes and encourage them to vote 
again as we vote on it here again later today.
  Earlier today, some of my Democratic colleagues expressed some 
objections--and, again, in the interest of time, my colleague from 
Illinois pointed out, people are waiting to vote. I do have to hit upon 
one, though. The Senator from Massachusetts seemed to indicate--and she 
has done so many times in the past--that somehow the CFPB is the only 
cop on the beat there. That is simply not true. These payment systems 
are regulated at the State and Federal level. There are other 
organizations out there that do regulation, like the FDIC, the FTC, the 
Office of Comptroller, and, of course, State banking regulators, which 
I used to manage as a former Governor. These organizations all look out 
for protection of the consumer. She phrased this as somehow we are 
going to be opening the doors to bad actors, and that is simply not the 
case.
  It is a complete misapprehension of our regulatory structure that is 
stunning from somebody who is the ranking member on the Banking 
Committee.
  So I encourage my colleagues to vote for the CRA. It will help roll 
back this unnecessary regulation. This is a regulation the CFPB put 
forward without even defining what market they were going to regulate. 
They gave misleading information that somehow, it would only cost 
$25,000. In fact, consumers are generally very broadly pleased with 
these payment systems. The CFPB's own data shows that only 1 percent of 
the 1.3 million complaints

[[Page S1521]]

they received last year were on these payment systems. So this is a 
regulation in search of a reason.
  We need to stop this expansion of the Federal bureaucracy. We will 
have the opportunity to do that today.
  I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the CRA.
  I yield the floor.