The House passed a bill Wednesday that would slow the pace of costly regulations and cut funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The bill, which passed 250-173, is the first swipe at the CFPB taken by the new Republican-controlled Congress. The CFPB had been shielded by a Democratic Senate during its first years of operation, but now faces a House and Senate run by Republicans who view the agency as unaccountable and overreaching.
The Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency of 2015, sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., passed with all Republicans and nine Democrats voting for it.
The legislation would require agencies to perform additional analyses and to consult with private-sector employers before implementing new rules.
House Speaker John Boehner’s office touted the measure as a jobs bill cutting red tape for businesses.
Following the vote, Boehner said regulators “should provide an honest accounting of what the mandates they hand down will mean for jobs and the economy. This common-sense jobs bill boosts transparency and accountability, and gives private-sector employers the opportunity to weigh in on new mandates.”
The bill also would cap the funding of the CFPB at $550 million for fiscal 2016. Under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that created the agency, the CFPB is funded by revenue from the Federal Reserve, rather than through the normal appropriations process. The CFPB director is authorized to request up to an estimated $632 million from the Fed for fiscal 2016, although the agency currently plans a smaller request.
The White House issued a veto threat to the legislation Tuesday, warning that it would “introduce needless uncertainty into agency decision-making and undermine the ability of agencies to provide critical public health and safety protections” by “layering on additional, burdensome judicial review and other unnecessary changes to the regulatory process.”
The White House and Democrats also have warned against GOP attempts to make changes to the CFPB.
“Republicans want to pay for the costs of their new burdens by depriving the one regulator charged with protecting our nation’s consumers of tens of millions of dollars,” House Financial Services ranking Democrat Maxine Waters of California said on the House floor Wednesday.
Waters said the bill “is just the latest in a never-ending effort to unravel the important protections for consumers and taxpayers this Congress put in place following the worst crisis in a generation.”
