He hasn’t had time to find out where the office supplies are kept, but Rohit Chopra will go before the House Financial Services Committee tomorrow and the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday to deliver the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s annual six-month update. This will mark the first time that the House or Senate has had the opportunity to sit down with the Director of the CFPB since last Fall.
Chopra, who took over as Director of the CFPB earlier this month, will sit down and answer questions from the Financial Services Committee starting at 10am ET. The event can be streamed live by clicking here. Thursday’s hearing can be streamed live at 10am by clicking here.
In the past, hearings before the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee have offered plenty of histrionics and rhetoric but little in the way of actual insight. When Richard Cordray ran the CFPB, Republicans on the Committee took turns swinging at him like he was a pinata while Democrats lauded his efforts to protect consumers. When Mick Mulvaney and Kathy Kraninger where in charge of the Bureau, Republicans praised their pro-business approach to ensuring free markets while Democrats blasted them for protecting businesses over consumers. Now that Chopra is in charge, you can guess which way the pendulum will swing once Rep. Maxine Waters [D-Calif.] and Sen. Sherrod Brown [D-Ohio] gavel the hearings to order.
There are no shortage of topics that Chopra will likely face questions and attacks on while testifying tomorrow. He will likely face questions about the Bureau’s investigations into how tech firms like Apple and Google are using consumer data gleaned from payments, and his agenda now that he has taken over. It is unlikely that Regulation F will be on the radar from anyone on either the House Financial Services or Senate Banking Committees.
