Not content to rely and wait for the Supreme Court to issue its ruling on whether the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional or not, companion bills were introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate yesterday that aim to put the Bureau under the Congressional appropriations process.
More information about the Federal Reserve Loss Transparency Act, H.R. 5993 is available by clicking here. More details about the Senate version, S. 3095, is available by clicking here. Rep. French Hill [R-Ark.] introduced the bill in the House, while Sen. Bill Hagerty [R-Tenn.] and Sen. Katie Britt [R-Ala.] introduced the Senate version.
This is not the first time that Rep. Hill and Sen. Hagerty have tried this particular piece of legislation. They previously introduced bills last September.
The CFPB does not receive the money it uses to operate — its budget — from Congress like most federal agencies. Instead, the Bureau is funded through the Federal Reserve Board. The CFPB’s budget was set up this way specifically to remove it from the partisan appropriations process, but critics have long said that doing so has shielded the Bureau from the same level of scrutiny as its peers. The Supreme Court has now been tasked with answering the question of whether the funding structure is constitutional or not, but it appears that Republicans don’t want to leave it to chance.
Because the Federal Reserve continues to lose money, it should not be funding the CFPB, the bills’ sponsors said.
“American taxpayers deserve the highest levels of transparency and accountability from the Federal Reserve,” said Sen. Britt, in a statement
