Consumer Financial Protection Safety and Soundness Improvement Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 3193, legislation that would gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that has been a critical and effective advocate for our Nation's consumers. Today's vote is just the latest chapter in a relentless Republican attack on consumer protection.

Since opening its doors in 2011, the CFPB has gone to bat for those who have been subject to the deceptive practices of unscrupulous financial institutions. Though it has been immensely successful, Republicans have tried to undercut it in every way possible.

Mr. Chairman, in just over 2 years, CFPB's enforcement actions have resulted in over $3 billion being directly refunded to more than 9.7 million consumers and servicemembers.

The CFPB has ensured that all consumers have fair and transparent access to consumer financial products and services. It has written important mortgage rules that prevent lenders from engaging in the risky and irresponsible practices that led to the collapse of the housing market and fueled the 2008 global financial crisis; and it continues to go after industries and institutions that, for years, have not been held accountable for abusive and deceptive practices.

The CFPB ensures that the tens of millions of consumers who interact with large consumer reporting agencies, debt collectors, payday lenders, and nonbanks originating mortgage loans have an advocate in their corner.

In fact, in fiscal year 2013, the CFPB was a party in 13 enforcement actions related to deceptive marketing, unlawful debt collection, discrimination on the basis of age, unlawful charging of fees, and fraudulent mortgage relief schemes, among other violations.

Since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened its doors, more than 269,000 individual consumer complaints have been received, and it has stood up for our Nation's Active Duty military who so greatly serve us, returning more than $12.5 million to them under the Military Lending Act.

Just yesterday, CFPB announced a lawsuit against a large for-profit college chain, accusing it of preying on students by pushing them into high-cost loans, very likely to end in default.

But my friends on the other side of the aisle don't believe that we should have a consumer advocate in government. They would prefer that these unscrupulous actors continue to take advantage of consumers without interference.

The simple fact is that H.R. 3193 would accomplish this goal, obstructing the CFPB's ability to protect consumers from deceptive marketing, unlawful debt collection, lending discrimination, overcharge fees, and other illegal activity. The bill does so by undermining CFPB's leadership, ending its autonomy, and tying its funding to Congressional appropriations, among other ways.

In fact, Republicans have brought this bill to the floor claiming a cost savings, but they know that the only way a savings is realized is by slashing the budget of the CFPB, the sole agency charged with consumer financial protections.

But that is not all. The provisions included in this measure would eliminate the position of the CFPB director in favor of some five-member commission that would increase bureaucracy--encouraging, inviting--and encumber its ability to take action on behalf of consumers. It would water down the CFPB's rulemaking authority by lowering the bar for overturning its rules.

Many of the amendments offered today would make this bill even worse. For example, the measure offered by Congressman DeSantis would repeal the Bureau's exclusive rulemaking authority, dispersing responsibility for protecting consumers among the same regulators who failed miserably in this task in the run-up to the financial crisis.

It is striking to listen to my friends on the opposite side of the aisle talk about the importance of consumer protection and then push a measure that is an obvious attempt to completely undermine and obstruct the CFPB's ability to protect consumers, students, seniors, and servicemembers.

If holding the Bureau accountable to its mission to protect American consumers truly is a Republican's goal, then why are we considering a bill which is strongly opposed by more than 100 organizations with long records of standing up for the interest of consumers?

I would urge my colleagues to oppose this damaging measure so the CFPB can continue its outstanding work.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. WATERS. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to, once again, reiterate my strong opposition to this harmful legislation which will weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created to protect consumers and defend them against bad actors and practices throughout our financial system.

Just in case we are losing sight of what this Bureau is all about, we have many citizens out there who are the victims of false advertising. People advertise something. They advertise a price. They advertise a product. They go to buy the product. It is not there. It costs more money.

Debt collectors, how many of our citizens have been harassed by debt collectors, calling them in the middle of the night, asking for information, and charging them with things they have never been involved in?

Don't forget those payday loans. Poor people run out of money, go to a payday lender, get charged 500 percent for a payday loan.

What about those private postsecondary schools where all of those students who are trying to get an education are forced into getting loans, are encouraged to get loans, get ripped off, don't learn anything, can't get a job?

What about those mortgage lenders who tricked all of those people into mortgage loans and they end up losing their homes? What about discrimination against the aged? What about what they did to our good men and women who served in different branches of the military for all of us and got ripped off by payday lenders?

This is what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is all about. I don't know how anyone could think that we shouldn't have protection for our consumers. Our consumers are finding out that, finally, we have something.

They are calling our telephone number, (855) 411-2372, to get some help. They are going to our Web site, www.consumerfinance.gov. Over 289,000 citizens have gone to this www.consumerfinance.gov Web site. They have called this telephone number, (855) 411-2372, because, finally, they have a bureau that is paying attention to all of the rip-offs, all of the fraudulent advertising, all of the overcharging of fees, all of what they did not have protection from in the past.

We realized, at some point in time, that all of our regulatory agencies that were supposed to be paying attention were not. Now, we have protection.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I rise in opposition to this amendment, and I will take a moment just to respond to the gentleman from Virginia who seemed a little bit disturbed that we would claim that they do not care about consumers. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, sir, and because of the way that the Republicans have opposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the manner in which we have described today that you have attempted to dismantle this Bureau, the way that you have tried to deny it having a strong Director, for all of those reasons, it is absolutely clear that you do not wish to have a Bureau that protects our consumers.

And so when we make these charges, we make them because we have proof. We have the information, we have the actions, and we have all that you have done to demonstrate that you really don't want a Bureau to protect the consumers of this country.

The fact is that Americans want banks to be regulated in order to prevent the kind of economic catastrophe that we are recovering from to this day. Because Republicans haven't been able to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, you have focused on making it impossible for the agencies to enact the rules required by the Wall Street reform bill. Your new strategy is to prevent our regulators from functioning by saddling them with burdensome and duplicative cost-benefit requirements.

Let's take a moment to talk about the cost of the financial crisis. The United States Department of the Treasury measured the cost of the financial crisis at $19.2 trillion in loss of household wealth and 8.8 million in lost jobs. Communities of color were hit particularly hard, losing over 50 percent of their household wealth. Millions of borrowers have been foreclosed upon, and millions more remain underwater and struggling to stay in their homes to this day.

A report by the Government Accountability Office on the cost-benefit analysis of the Dodd-Frank Act stated:

If the cost of a future crisis is expected to be in the trillions of dollars, then the act likely would need to reduce the probability of a future financial crisis by only a small percent for its expected benefit to equal the act's expected cost.

Beyond all of this, this amendment is a solution in search of a problem. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is already required to perform cost-benefit analysis on its rules and evaluate impacts on small businesses. The CFPB has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to minimizing the impact of its rules on small banking institutions and small businesses.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was designed with one goal in mind: we were giving consumers a fair shake in the marketplace by making sure they finally had a regulator who was on their side. The CFPB is the only agency with the expertise and the mission to focus on developing trends in the consumer finance marketplace, identify abuses, and stop them before they lead borrowers into financial ruin.

Prior to the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, consumer financial laws were supposed to be enforced by cooperation amongst all of the regulators. But as we now know all too well, safety and soundness concerns time and again trumped those of consumer protection, leading to the system where all of the regulators were responsible and none of them were accountable.

It was precisely this inattention to consumer protection that allowed the crisis to boil up under regulators' noses, leaving American families to foot the bill. Fortunately, Congress learned the lesson that strong protections for consumers are essential to maintaining a stable and sound economic foundation.

Upon passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, this House finally had put a cop on the beat with exclusive authority to issue sensible rules that protect every American. We are confident that the CFPB will continue to work diligently with prudential regulators to make sure their rules are consistent with the safe and sound operations of banks, ensuring that both rulemaking and enforcement authorities reside exclusively with the CFPB and will increase confidence in consumer markets and also ensure certainty for businesses and financial institutions.

Returning to the broken model that existed before the crisis just doesn't make good sense. So I would urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman and Members, we have had discussions with Members on the opposite side of the aisle about protection for our consumers. We have heard them tell us everything about people should have choices. They can go and hire their own lawyers, they can go into court. They can do all of these things. The fact of the matter is, government does have the responsibility to protect consumers. This is a government of laws and rules that we put together for businesses. We allow businesses to operate in certain ways, but we cannot allow them to run roughshod over consumers.

Like I said, prior to Dodd-Frank, that is, the reform, we had nobody looking out for consumers. We had our financial services agencies of government saying that their real job was for safety and soundness, not for consumer protection. So we have had news media, we have had nonprofit agencies, we have had groups getting together trying to address all of these abuses, all of these problems all by themselves. Well, guess what? Now we have a cop on the block. It is your government. This consumerfinance.gov Web site is there for all of our citizens. This telephone number, (855) 411-2372, is there for our consumers to call, and while you are calling the Bureau, call your elected officials also and ask them why they don't stand up for you, why they are on the floor of Congress advocating against your right to have protection from all of these kinds of abuses. Enough is enough.

Americans consumers are losing dollars every day because of crooks and schemes and thieves and on and on and on, and now you get rid of the very agency that would protect them from all of these schemes? I am so happy that we have reform. I am so happy that now the American people can rely on their government to come to their aid.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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