Kathy Kraninger’s first day approach was straightforward: No drama.
The newly confirmed director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did her best to avoid the theatrics that accompanied Mick Mulvaney’s first day on the job as acting director, when he showed up to the agency’s offices with a bag of donuts and prepared for a major fight with Democrats over the future of the consumer financial regulation.
“I think there are different circumstances … from when Director Mulvaney was here and my tenure,” said Kraninger, adding that Mulvaney entered the bureau under “challenging dynamics.” Mulvaney, who also serves as President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, faced a legal challenge from former bureau Deputy Director Leandra English, who sued to be recognized as the acting director under the law that set up the agency. As a full-time appointee from the start, Kraninger believes her tenure will have a “different posture.”
In her 20-odd minutes with reporters, Kraninger projected the profile that Republicans expected when voting to confirm her: That of a low-profile, career public servant with experience managing federal offices but little baggage from the yearslong fight over the bureau.
Democrats uniformly opposed Kraninger’s nomination, arguing that she has no experience in financial regulation or consumer protection law and would only pursue the same deregulatory agenda that Mulvaney sketched out.
But while Kraninger indicated that she appreciates the longstanding Republican view that the bureau overstepped in its duties during the Obama administration, she described enforcement of consumer protection laws as “fundamental to the agency’s mission.”
“I think Congress gave us the full panoply of tools, and we will use them,” Kraninger added. “Where there are bad actors we will absolutely take enforcement actions to the fullest extent of the law.”
Democrats in Congress, empowered by taking the majority in the House of Representatives for the next two years, will certainly hold her to that. And they may be skeptical of Kraninger’s stated first goals of re-examining how the bureau collects and stores data and what the agency should call itself. Kraninger told reporters this while seated next to a flag adorned with the new symbol and name for the agency, the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Mulvaney said he changed the name to symbolize the bureau’s new attitude under the Trump administration.
Kraninger said she would be “briefed” on the agency title change, but she hinted that it could stay the same.
She also extended a verbal olive branch to legislators.
“I want to have a productive relationship with Congress. I think they’re a critical stakeholder,” Kraninger told reporters at her inaugural press round table. She said she hoped to speak to Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the likely chair of the House Financial Services Committee during the next Congress, later on Tuesday afternoon. “We will do our utmost at the bureau to be accountable and transparent.”
