After insisting for months that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be allowed to run out of money, Acting Director Russell Vought has now formally asked the Federal Reserve for $145 million to keep the agency operating through the end of March, but explicitly stating that he disagrees with the court order that forced him to do so. The funding request, sent Friday, comes just days after a federal judge rejected the administration’s legal theory that the CFPB could be defunded because the Federal Reserve lacked “combined earnings.” While the request keeps the Bureau alive for now, it underscores how precarious the agency’s future remains as litigation continues and leadership openly signals its desire to shut the CFPB down.
The request marks the first time Vought has sought funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since taking control of the agency in early 2025. Under the CFPB’s statutory structure, its director must submit quarterly funding requests to the Federal Reserve, which transfers money outside the congressional appropriations process. The $145 million request will fund the Bureau for the current quarter, which ends in March.
Vought’s request follows a stinging decision by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who rejected his argument that the CFPB could no longer be funded because the Federal Reserve has operated at a paper loss since 2022. Judge Jackson concluded that neither the statute nor longstanding practice supports that interpretation and described the claimed funding “lapse” as a manufactured attempt to sidestep an injunction preventing the agency from being dismantled.
In his letter to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Vought made clear that compliance was compelled, not voluntary. “Although I disagree with the opinion and order,” he wrote, he nevertheless determined that $145 million was “reasonably necessary” to carry out the Bureau’s authorities for the quarter.
The CFPB has remained largely dormant under Vought’s leadership. Bank examinations have been halted, most employees remain sidelined, and nearly all new supervisory and enforcement activity has stopped. Earlier efforts to terminate roughly 90% of the agency’s workforce were blocked by court order, and those restrictions remain in place while appeals proceed.
Next month, the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear arguments on whether the administration can dramatically reduce the agency’s staff and operations. That decision could ultimately determine whether the CFPB continues to function as a meaningful regulator or remains in a state of enforced minimal survival.
For banks, fintechs, debt collectors, and other regulated entities, the message is mixed: the CFPB is not going away immediately, but its capacity to supervise and enforce remains sharply constrained. The funding request keeps the agency alive, for now.
