[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 11850]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

  Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, 5 years ago today, President Obama signed 
into law the Dodd-Frank Act. Following the 2008 financial crisis, 
Washington passed this 2,300-page bill, creating more burdensome 
regulations that did not solve the crisis, and, in many ways, made it 
worse. You are going to hear a lot about the failures of the Dodd-Frank 
Act over the next few years.
  From what was intended to rein in five major banks who led us into 
trouble in the 2008 crisis, has created unintended consequences today 
that are affecting thousands of small town regional banks across our 
country. I rise today to speak about one agency created by the Dodd-
Frank law, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or the CFPB. While 
many Americans may not have heard of the CFPB before, they will in the 
future. This agency touches every aspect of people's lives, from credit 
card records, mortgage applications, student loans, and car sales to 
much more.
  The CFPB seemingly knows more about American consumers than we know 
about the very agency that is supposed to be protecting them. According 
to a report by the Government Accountability Office, every month the 
CFPB scrubs data on credit card transactions, debit card transactions, 
consumer mortgage loans, car loans, and hundreds of thousands of other 
personal financial information. This leads to several questions. Why 
are they collecting this information in the first place? How does 
collecting credit card statements help protect consumers? How secure is 
all of this data?
  Unfortunately, we know very little about what the CFPB is doing with 
all of this sensitive information, except looking for additional 
opportunities to regulate. Remember, before 2009 we already had six 
prudential regulators mandated, among other things, to protect the 
consumer. Yet as a result of 2008, instead of streamlining and 
consolidating, we actually added a seventh prudential regulator charged 
with consumer protection, the CFPB.
  Today, the CFPB operates on top of the existing regulators, in 
addition to--not in replacement of--these agencies, and duplicating 
efforts among these other agencies. By design, Dodd-Frank ensured that 
the CFPB does not have the same oversight control as other agencies. 
Currently, Congress does not even have control over how the Bureau 
spends its funds or is even appropriated.
  The CFPB operates outside the regular appropriations process of 
Congress, which other independent agencies, such as the Securities and 
Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Product 
Safety Commission, and others, are all subject to. Why would any 
government agency with access to that much consumer data be 
unaccountable to Congress? Recently, I introduced legislation to help 
shed more light on this agency and bring the CFPB under the 
appropriations process of the Congress. The sheer volume of consumer 
data being collected by the CFPB is concerning and ripe for abuse.
  In fact, the GAO and the Federal Reserve inspector general both have 
warned about the need for increased security. Without full 
congressional oversight, how can we be sure this consumer data is 
secure? What kind of records does the CFPB keep? How would we know if 
it has been compromised? We have already seen the devastating effect of 
data breaches all over our Federal Government, and the damage it is 
doing to the American people across all sectors of our government, 
including the most recent OPM data breach, impacting millions of 
Americans and some of our intelligence assets abroad.
  We have seen the potential exposure of extremely sensitive national 
security information. Also, we recently had a debate about privacy 
regarding the NSA metadata program. Many of my colleagues expressed 
outrage for the scope of the NSA program, even when the mission was 
protecting national security. We are now talking about an agency 
collecting massive amounts of personal consumer data, many times more 
data than the NSA program.
  The CFPB's goal claims to be consumer protection. For all we know, 
this information they are collecting is even more susceptible to 
security threats and security breaches. If there is one thing we can 
agree upon, we need to make sure all Americans' personal information is 
safe and secure--especially from Washington. If some were upset about 
privacy in the NSA debate, we should certainly be paying attention to 
what the CFPB is doing with this personal information today.
  Getting the CFPB under congressional oversight should not be a 
partisan issue. In order to protect consumers, we need to know what is 
going on in the very government agency tasked with protecting them. 
That is why we need to put in place more transparency--not less--more 
control, and more oversight. We can start by bringing the CFPB under 
congressional oversight immediately so we can actually protect 
consumers and stop the potential for abuse, fraud or identity theft.
  While this agency was originally designed to protect consumers, one 
can only wonder how Washington's collecting so much personal 
information will actually protect us. I will be speaking much more on 
this topic as the weeks go by. Let it be said tonight, though, that on 
the fifth anniversary of Dodd-Frank, we are beginning to look at the 
unintended consequences of this rogue agency, the CFPB.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

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