Disapproving the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Relating to ``Defining Larger Participants of A Market for General-Use Digital Consumer Payment Applications''

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 284, I call up the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 28) disapproving the rule submitted by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection relating to ``Defining Larger Participants of a Market for General-Use Digital Consumer Payment Applications,'' and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this resolution to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's deeply flawed final rule on larger participants in general-use digital payment applications.

It sounds complicated, Mr. Speaker, but it is not. This is a midnight rule created by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It is overly broad, and it is imprecise. It treats a wide variety of digital payment applications, peer-to-peer apps, digital wallets, and e-commerce tools, as though they are identical simply because they facilitate payments and serve a large numbers of users.

However, these products are not the same. They serve different models, operate under different rules, and pose different kinds of consumer risks.

This kind of regulatory overreach is bad enough on its own, but what makes this rule especially concerning is the process by which it was created. The CFPB's approach to carry out this rulemaking is a clear example of undemocratic and unjustified action. The CFPB gave the public just 30 days to comment on this proposal. That is 30 days for businesses across the country, Members of Congress, State regulators, and the public to weigh in on a rule that has potentially profound consequences for digital commerce, one of the most rapidly growing portions of Financial Services and FinTech.

In addition, the Bureau rushed to finalize the rule in the waning days of the Biden administration, ignoring much of the stakeholder feedback and pushing it through to try and insulate it from future scrutiny or reconsideration.

Now, this is not the first time that the CFPB has issued rules without sufficient transparency or process. In fact, Members on both sides of the aisle during my years in Congress have routinely criticized the CFPB for rushing matters, not following the process, not giving the public sufficient time to criticize and critique its proposals. However, Mr. Speaker, this needs to be the last time that the CFPB does this.

In a post-Chevron deference world, Congress must step in and assert our Article I authority over independent agencies that stray beyond their statutory authority, bypass the legislative process, and undermine the public trust.

Let's be clear: There is no apparent evidence of widespread consumer harm that justifies this rule. There is no demonstrated market failure here. What we have instead is an agency stretching its mandate in a way Congress never intended.

By allowing this final rule to remain intact, we are affirming that scale alone justifies the regulation, meaning size and scope alone justifies the regulation regardless of the conduct, the risk, or harm to a consumer.

This CFPB approach violates decades of balanced principles in assessing and implementing regulations in finance. It certainly is not the barometer that Congress intended for the CFPB to use when interpreting their authorities.

This is not responsible, risk-based regulation. It is a shortcut to control, applied without the justification that both consumers and innovators deserve.

Some may try to frame this argument as a gift to Big Tech. That is a distraction. This is not about defending large companies. This is about defending good governance, our legislative authority, and the public's right to be part of major and costly regulatory decisionmaking.

If we allow this rule to stand, we are setting a dangerous precedent, one where Federal agencies can bypass Congress, ignore public input, and rewrite rules largely behind closed doors. This is a precedent that we cannot afford to set, regardless of who is in the White House or who is in the crosshairs.

Mr. Speaker, the CFPB operated without accountability or transparency. It has undermined consumer protections, stifled innovation, and eroded public trust.

I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution and reassert the proper role of Congress in setting the regulatory agenda and shaping sound financial policy.

I absolutely think Members of this House should stand up for the rule of law starting with Article I, the legislative authority that we draft the statutes here and direct the independent agencies how to do their rulemakings, under what conditions to do their rulemakings, how to evaluate their rulemakings, and what is a reasonable amount of time to get public input.

We have the right, on behalf of the elected Representatives of the American people, to let our voices be known when a nonelected, to quote my good friend, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), unelected bureaucrat chooses to step beyond the bounds of the statute and do something not in keeping with process.

Mr. MOORE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S.J. Res. 28, a joint resolution to overturn the CFPB's final rule targeting larger participants in general-use digital consumer payment applications.

This rule is a textbook case of regulatory overreach. It stems from a flawed process and applies an overly broad approach that blurs important distinctions between very different products and services in the digital economy.

Rather than taking a thoughtful and tailored approach, the CFPB opted for a sweeping rule that treats all digital payment services as if they are the same, ignoring critical differences that matter for both consumers as well as providers.

When regulators fail to distinguish fundamentally different products, they don't just risk getting it wrong, but they guarantee it. The digital economy is too important and evolving too quickly for blanket policies built on vague definitions and rushed processes. We need thoughtful, targeted oversight that reflects reality, not a one-size- fits-all mandate that will do more harm than good.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Flood and Chairman Hill for their work on this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that, again, we are talking about unelected bureaucrats in an agency that is not following the strict direction of Congress and have overreached in how they have proposed this rule at the last minute at the end of the Biden administration. It is truly a midnight rule with limited comment period.

Mr. Speaker, 30 days is the minimum under anybody's consideration of a fair-minded Administrative Procedure Act comment period. Yet, everything you read says that it should be extended if market participants feel like they haven't been heard, and 30 days at the end of an administration over the holiday period at the end of the year is not sufficient time for Members of Congress, market participants, consumers, and others to weigh in. I do have process concerns about how the former director of the CFPB carried on this particular proposal.

Secondly, my colleagues have talked about the substance of it and how it is confusing and steps beyond, again, the mission and the direction by Congress to the CFPB.

My good friend from California (Ms. Waters), the ranking member of the full committee, referenced several other large participant-type rules that had been proposed by the CFPB, but they were in discrete market segments.

Mr. Speaker, this is actually one of the biggest concerns about this proposal. It is a wide variety of digital payment services from peer- to-peer apps, to a digital wallet, to e-commerce tools, like the gentleman from Nebraska talked about, as if they are identical simply because they facilitate a certain number of payments, but they are not substantively the same. They can't be treated identically. That is a huge flaw in this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I reiterate my support for Mr. Flood's support of S.J. Res. 28. He has worked hard on this with Senator Ricketts from his home State of Nebraska. They stand on the facts that a vote for this resolution is a vote to prevent the CFPB from stifling financial innovation with its one-size-fits-all approach and limiting customers' access to increased access to financial payments.

Nonbank providers of digital payments are already being regulated at both the State and the Federal levels. American consumers did not petition us, Mr. Speaker, to intervene in this way at the last minute in the waning days of the Biden administration. Of all the CFPB's annual complaints that they collect year in and year out, less than 1 percent even touch on this market.

This Congressional Review Act will overturn last-minute rulemaking from the Biden-Harris administration and ensure that consumers have access to innovative financial products.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support S.J. Res. 28, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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