House Financial Services panel signals more bills on consumer bureau are coming

Committee members, including Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), have already introduced legislation that would alter the top of the CFPB, having it be run by a bipartisan five-member commission as opposed to a single director. Now that a hearing has been set to discuss multiple proposals, it appears additional bills should be forthcoming.

Administration officials are working to get the CFPB off the ground before it is set to go live in July. Meanwhile, Republicans, who staunchly opposed the creation of the bureau when it was included in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, have leveled multiple critiques against the agency and its architect, presidential adviser Elizabeth Warren.

The GOP claims that the bureau has been given sweeping powers that give it the ability to exercise control over almost any aspect of the consumer financial system. In addition, the CFPB is funded via the Federal Reserve and not congressional appropriations, which Republicans complain limits the amount of oversight lawmakers can exercise on the fledgling agency.

Warren has fiercely argued against bringing the CFPB’s budget under congressional control, saying no other banking regulators have their budgets set that way. She said doing so would make the CFPB susceptible to lobbying pressures from deep-pocketed financial industries.

Committee Republicans unveiled a package of bills that would alter various aspects of Dodd-Frank earlier this month, but none of them tackled the CFPB.

A committee spokesman declined to comment on the hearing.