Consumers First Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1500, the Consumers First Act, which restores the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so it can carry out its mission of protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices by financial institutions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created by Congress following the financial crisis in order to ensure that there is an agency in place with the sole, dedicated purpose of protecting every consumer of financial products and services and holding bad actors fully accountable when consumers are harmed.
Under the leadership of its first Director, Richard Cordray, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was a resounding success. During that time, the agency put nearly $12 billion back in the pockets of over 30 million consumers who were harmed by financial institutions. The agency put in place important new protections so that consumers no longer had to worry about exploding mortgages, hidden prepaid card fees, or unnecessary foreclosures due to weak servicing standards.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also helped to take the confusing jargon out of various financial products, such as student loans, by creating tools students can use to compare financial aid and costs when deciding where to go to college.
But Donald Trump and his appointees have made it their mission to destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from within. Mick Mulvaney, who was Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget before Trump inappropriately installed him as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, made it his mission to dismantle the agency from the inside. In fact, enforcement actions have fallen by 75 percent under Trump's appointees, there have been zero public fair lending enforcement actions, Mulvaney originally requested zero dollars from the Fed to fund the CFPB, and the number of employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has declined by 10 percent.
I introduced the Consumers First Act to fix the damage that Mulvaney caused at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For example, Mulvaney stripped the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity of its supervisory enforcement powers. The Consumers First Act restores those powers.
Mulvaney fired the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's consumer advisory board. The Consumers First Act restores and strengthens the advisory panel to ensure consumers are heard by the agency's leadership.
Mulvaney stacked the senior leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with ideological political appointees. The Consumers First Act limits the number of political appointees at the agency.
Mulvaney stopped the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from supervising its regulated entities for compliance with the Military Lending Act, which is in place to prevent servicemembers from being ripped off. The Consumers First Act directs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to promptly resume Military Lending Act exams.
Mulvaney worked to hide the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's consumer complaint database from the public. The Consumers First Act requires that the consumer complaint database remain publicly accessible so that there is transparency about the complaints consumers are making about financial institutions.
H.R. 1500 puts consumers first by reversing the harmful actions Mulvaney took that we are aware of one by one. Over 50 consumer, civil rights, and labor organizations support the Consumers First Act.
The harm at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is continuing under Director Kathy Kraninger, who appears to be following Mulvaney's lead by rolling back payday lending protections and reducing the collection of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, or HMDA data, which is used to identify discrimination in lending. And she is just getting started. Following general debate on the bill, the House will debate several amendments to undo the harmful actions taken by Director Kraninger.
Congress will not tolerate the Trump administration's anticonsumer actions, and H.R. 1500 will ensure that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is able to fulfill its statutory mission to put consumers first.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, I am so proud of this legislation, I am so proud of the members of the Financial Services Committee, and I am so proud of our Democratic Caucus. We have strong support for this legislation. I am so proud of the over 50 consumer, labor, and civil rights organizations who strongly support H.R. 1500, the Consumers First Act.
It has been said more than once today that we went through a recession here in this country--almost a depression--in 2008 when predatory lending from the major financial institutions in America caused this recession and caused us to have communities that were devastated--boarded up homes--we had communities, not only where the homes were boarded up, but the weeds were growing up, in many instances animals had taken over the property, and many consumers and homeowners who lost these homes really did not know what had happened to them.
It was predatory lending. It was the tricks that were fostered on innocent people who simply wanted to live the American Dream and own a home. They signed on the dotted line for products and mortgages they didn't understand and could not afford. And they were led into signing on the bottom line because we had predatory lenders who wanted to get them into a situation where they could get some money, perhaps up front, and sell off the products that they were getting signed on up to Wall Street, et cetera, et cetera.
Of course, we worked for 2 years, and it was in 2010 that we were able to put the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau together, which is indeed the centerpiece of the Dodd-Frank reforms. So we had Mr. Cordray who was our first Director who did a magnificent job, and it has been cited here time and time again.
My friends on the opposite side of the aisle have done everything that they could do to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and, Madam Chair, none of them are going to vote for this bill today. None of them will criticize the big banks on Wall Street and others who took advantage of our consumers.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairwoman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just say that we send a message from this House today, and our message that we are sending out across this Nation is that we are now in a position to undo what has been done and the wreckage that has been caused with our Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
We send a message that the day for predatory lending is over.
We send the message despite the fact that we have Members of this House who would dare not stand up for students and servicemembers and not criticize what has happened to consumers in the way that it has happened in this country. And so I want that message to be loud and clear.
I want those on Wall Street and the major banks who had the predatory products and who had the exotic loans, I want all those who mismanaged the way that they deal with our students when our students had complaints and they looked for someone to help them, I want all of them to know, well, I suppose, there is a new sheriff in town.
We are going to make sure that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is strong, that it is not simply made up of political appointees, and that they do not have to worry in the way that they are worrying now. We have personnel who have quit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because it was not carrying out the mission that was intended.
Again, I have said earlier how proud I am to have this bill on the floor and to have the support of the Democratic Caucus.
I would just ask my friends on the opposite side of the aisle to think about what is going on and to think about ways that they can begin to take into consideration their constituents who need protection, and prior to our legislation there was no protection for consumers.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chair, I am so proud that, today, we are going to stand up for consumers on this side of the aisle. It is unfortunate that our friends on the opposite side of the aisle have not seen fit to support consumers. They will all vote against this bill. We will vote for this bill on this side of the aisle.
Madam Chair, again, I urge my colleagues to come to the floor quickly and vote for consumer financial protection, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chair, this amendment would take the widely successful consumer complaint database dark, hiding from the public how consumers report personally being harmed by financial institutions.
The Dodd-Frank Act required the CFPB to establish a consumer complaint database to provide consumers with the opportunity to report complaints about financial products and services.
A public database empowers consumers to seek redress when harmed and benefits the public by providing firsthand stories to help other consumers to avoid similar harms.
A public database also promotes market discipline and encourages financial firms to treat their consumers fairly. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has received over 1.5 million consumer submissions, with a 97 percent response rate by financial firms to the consumer complaints.
This means that the American people know, need, and use this function. Taking this away from the public only harms hardworking people in need of help and benefits the bad actors.
Through its research, education, market monitoring, and the much-used consumer complaint database, the CFPB has been able to directly address problems in the market and issues that directly harm hardworking families. This is especially useful for the millions of consumers who, unfortunately, do not have the financial means, time, or access to the judicial court system.
Mandating that the consumer complaint database remain transparent and publicly accessible is an important aspect of this bill and will promote better conduct from providers of financial services across this country. Thus, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment to H.R. 1500, the Consumers First Act.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I would like to reiterate my strong opposition to this amendment.
Congress must ensure that consumer complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are available to the public to hold companies accountable to the American people for their actions or lack of actions.
Therefore, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment to H.R. 1500, the Consumers First Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment because it seeks to limit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by using the appropriations process to politicize and defund the agency.
All the bank regulators are independently funded. In addition to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC, and the NCUA are all funded outside of the appropriations process. In fact, so is the FHFA, the FSOC, and OFR.
Congress provided the regulators with independence from the executive branch and the appropriations process to ensure that financial regulators focused on protecting the financial system from harm.
However, ever since it was created, Republicans have focused on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding because, more than any other agency, it has helped level the playing field between Wall Street on one side and families, communities of color, older Americans, servicemembers, and students on the other.
Under the guise of the appropriations process, Republicans are seeking to do by amendment what they were unable to do for the 8 years they were in power, eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau entirely.
To that end, Mulvaney's first request for funds to be transferred from the Federal Reserve to fund the CFPB's operations was zero. He later asked Congress to turn the CFPB, which he previously called a ``sick, sad'' joke of an agency, into an appropriated one.
In addition, Republicans often point to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is subject to annual appropriations, as an example we should follow. What they seem to forget is that during Trump's 35-day shutdown, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau remained open while the SEC was effectively shuttered.
Advocacy groups like Americans for Financial Reform also point out that ``big banks would be able to use the politically charged appropriations process to deny funding for rule-writing or enforcement actions that Wall Street particularly dislikes. They could simply starve the agency of the basic funds it needs to do its job or threaten to do so in order to intimidate the agency out of taking actions to curb abuses by powerful companies.''
The difference with Mulvaney and the Trump administration is that they have purposely sought to ignore or disregard the law and the independence Congress tried to create. Mulvaney, who reports directly to Trump, clearly ignored the law when he directed the agency to stop supervising banks for violations of the Military Lending Act.
Nevertheless, I am not surprised that Republicans' efforts to reform the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau involve trying to starve the agency of funding.
Madam Chair, Democrats want to ensure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can do and is doing its jobs and puts consumers first. This amendment does exactly the opposite, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.
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Ms. WATERS. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I would like to reiterate my strong opposition to this amendment.
Today, the House is trying to return the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to its mission of putting consumers first. This amendment, instead, is meant to slow down and ultimately starve the agency by using the appropriations process.
Madam Chair, my friends on the opposite side of the aisle have tried everything they could try to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I think it is odd that they would spend their time opposing what is good for consumers and, yet, embracing the very institutions that caused us to have a recession in 2008 and to harm the American people.
Madam Chair, I ask that everyone oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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