Maloney fights to protect CFPB funding during contentious committee markup

Press Release

The House Financial Services Committee today considered an amendment to the FY 2016 Republican Views and Estimates on the Budget offered by Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) that would protect independent funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans have repeatedly worked to make the CFPB budget subject to annual appropriations with the goal of phasing out funding for the Dodd-Frank created bureau.

"Republicans claim that subjecting CFPB to appropriations is about making this critical regulator more accountable, but we know that's not true," said Maloney. "The true purpose is to undermine, defund, and hinder the CFPB any way they possibly can. Nobody can reasonably claim that CFPB is unaccountable, when the Bureau's officials have testified before Congress 52 times since it was established in 2011 -- more than any other financial regulator."

In the 113th Congress, Republicans tried to eliminate the CFPB's independent funding four separate times. Nearly 40 percent of bills marked up by the Financial Services Committee in the previous Congress were designed to weaken the CFPB.

Maloney's amendment would have added the following language to the Views and Estimates of the Committee on Financial Services on Matters to be Set Forth in the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2016:

"Like all other independent banking regulators the CFPB's budget is not subject to the appropriations process. The agency is also required by statute to submit to Congress a semi-annual report and make the Director available for a hearing on that report to the House Financial Services and Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committees. The CFPB is accountable directly to the Congress and, since its establishment, has appeared before Congress 52 times."

The amendment failed on a party-line vote.

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