DON’T HAMSTRING THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU
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Officers Interim Chairperson Judith L. Lichtman National Partnership for Women &Families Vice Chairperson Karen K. Narasaki Asian American Justice CenterSecretary Barry Rand AARP TreasurerLee A. Saunders American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Executive Committee Barbara Arnwine Lawyer’s Committee ForCivil Rights Under Law Arlene Holt BakerAFL-CIO Marcia GreenbergerNational Women’s Law CenterLinda D. Hallman American Association ofUniversity Women Mary Kay Henry Service Employees International Union Andrew J. Imparato American Association of People with Disabilities Benjamin Jealous NAACP Michael B. Keegan People For The American Way Floyd Mori Japanese American Citizens League Marc H. Morial National Urban League Janet Murguia National Council of La Raza Debra Ness National Partnership for Women AndFamilies Terry O’Neill National Organization for Women Jacqueline Johnson Pata National Congress ofAmerican Indians John Payton NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Dennis Van Roekel National Education Association Anthony Romero American Civil Liberties Union Thomas A. Saenz Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund David Saperstein Religious Action Center forReform Judaism Shanna L. Smith National Fair Housing Alliance Joe Solmonese Human Rights Campaign Randi Weingarten American Federation of Teachers Mary G. Wilson League of Women Voters Sara Najjar-WIlson American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee Compliance/Enforcement Committee Chairperson Karen K. Narasaki Asian American Justice CenterPresident & CEO Wade J. Henderson Executive Vice President & COO Karen McGill Lawson DON’T HAMSTRING THE CONSUMERFINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU May 4, 2011 Dear Member, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit: On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, we write to express our strong opposition to any legislation that seeks to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) before it even has a chance to begin its important work. We urge you to reject the measures being marked up before the Subcommittee today. The Leadership Conference believes that the abysmal failure of existing regulators to look out for the interests of the communities we represent, or those of consumers in general, makes the need for a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau perfectly clear. The bills being considered today, however, do not reflect this priority. H.R. 1121, the “Responsible Consumer Financial Protection Regulations Act,” would replace the Director of the CFPB with a five-person Commission. This is virtually identical to a proposal that was considered and subsequently rejected during the process that led to last year’s passage of the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” If enacted, H.R. 1121 would undermine the very accountability over consumer protection that the CFPB was intended to provide. The proposed Commission would be slower to respond to reckless or dangerous practices in the financial services industry, and would inherently be placed in a position ofweakness relative to other regulators, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. As such, H.R. 1121 would benefit neither consumers nor financial services providers. Similarly, H.R. 1315, the “Consumer Financial Protection Safety and Soundness Improvement Act,” would also weaken the CFPB relati ve to other financial industry regulators. It would greatly–and unnecessarily–expand the “veto power” that otherregulators currently enjoy over the CFPB. In other words, it would return more authority over consumer protection laws to the same regulatory bodies that steadfastly refused to use it in the years leading up to our nation’s mortgage crisis. As such, H.R. 1315 represents not just an astonishing refusal to learn from the mistakes of the past, but an insistence on making the very same mistakes all over again.
DON’T HAMSTRING THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU
