People Power United joined a group letter opposing bills that weaken the CFPB, and oppose all legislative attempts to change the CFPB’s independence, funding and structure.
🗽A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
People Power United joined a group letter opposing bills that weaken the CFPB, and oppose all legislative attempts to change the CFPB’s independence, funding and structure. Shout out to Americans for Financial Reform for leading this effort.
📄 Here is the letter signed on behalf of our People Power United members:
The Honorable French Hill The Honorable Maxine Waters Chairman Ranking Member
House Committee on Financial Services House Committee on Financial Services 2129 Rayburn House Office Building 2129 Rayburn House Office Building Washington DC, 20515 Washington DC, 20515
July 15, 2025
Re: Oppose bills that weaken the CFPB, and oppose all legislative attempts to change the CFPB’s independence, funding and structure
Dear Chairman Hill and Ranking Member Waters:
The 68 undersigned community, civil rights, consumer, civic and other organizations urge you to oppose the bills, listed below, which would undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and threaten its statutorily mandated consumer protection mission. The Bureau was intentionally designed by Congress to function independently, to be led by an independent director, and with a secure funding stream in order to insulate the agency from political and economic pressures and fully protect the public. This past May, the Supreme Court further reaffirmed the constitutionality of the Bureau’s funding mechanism in CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association.1 More recently, two Texas courts in separate cases reiterated the legitimacy of the agency’s funding mechanism.2
In the fourteen years since its creation, the CFPB has helped everyday people when they are hit with junk fees, scammed, misled, and preyed upon by financial companies. The Bureau has obtained $21 billion in relief for over 200 million people through restitution or cancelled debts3 and has saved families tens of billions of dollars more through its supervisory and enforcement actions. As the primary agency charged with enforcing the Military Lending Act, the CFPB also returned $363 million to servicemembers and veterans through 39 enforcement actions (including 6 Military Lending Act violations).4
As a result of its important work, the general public, along with industry stakeholders, servicemember and veterans’ organizations, and consumer advocacy groups all agree that Congress and the administration must not undermine the Bureau’s independence, weaken its structure, or defund the CFPB. For these reasons, Congress must oppose the bills highlighted below, which would make it harder for the CFPB to protect everyday people from financial harms, predatory lending practices, and other unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices. The CFPB’s work and mission are currently under attack through dropped enforcement cases, mass illegal firings, and stop work orders.5 Instead of pushing for bills to further dismantle the Bureau and protect lawbreakers,
1 Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. Cmty. Fin. Servs. Ass'n of Am., Ltd., 601 U.S. 416, 416, 144 S. Ct. 1474, 1475, 218 L. Ed. 2d 455 (2024).
2 See Texas v. Colony Ridge, Inc., No. CV H-24-0941, 2024 WL 4553111, at *4 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 11, 2024) and Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. Active Network, LLC, No. 4:22-CV-00898, 2024 WL 4437639, at *1 (E.D. Tex. Oct. 7, 2024). 3 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP). About the Bureau. Accessed July 14, 2025. 4 Ibid.
5 Wamsley, Laurel. “Judge blocks mass layoffs at CFPB in the latest twist over the fate of the agency.” National Public Radio. April 18, 2025.
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Congress must do everything possible to protect the CFPB’s structure, independence, and secure funding stream.
Congress must maintain the CFPB’s stable and constitutional funding stream and oppose the “TABS Act” (H.R. 654) and the “CFPB Budget Integrity Act” (H.R. 3141). When Congress created the CFPB in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, it transferred many of the consumer protection and civil rights enforcement powers from the prudential regulators such as the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to CFPB. Like other bank regulatory agencies, the CFPB was given a stable funding stream from a dedicated Federal Reserve transfer to make sure the financial sectors the Bureau regulates—including financial institutions, payday and other high-cost lenders, as well as debt collectors and credit bureaus—are consistently supervised and comply with statutory requirements.
H.R. 654, “Taking Account of Bureaucrat’s Spending (TABS) Act of 2025”6 offered by Rep. Andy Barr (Ky.), would subject the CFPB to the deeply flawed annual appropriations process, which would leave the CFPB’s funding vulnerable to congressional shutdowns, budget paralysis, deregulatory appropriations riders, and constant threats to the funding it needs, unlike its partner bank regulators the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the FDIC. It would also imperil the CFPB’s consumer protection mission and provide Wall Street and the worst members of the financial industry with endless lobbying opportunities to deny the CFPB stable funding to protect people.
The “CFPB Budget Integrity Act” (H.R. 3141) offered by Rep. Downing (Mont.)7 limits the CFPB’s ability to save unused funds in any given fiscal year. Any unobligated balances over 5 percent in any fiscal year goes straight back to the Treasury, limiting the CFPB’s ability to fulfill its mission.
Congress must protect the CFPB’s single director structure and oppose bills such as the “Commission of the Consumer Financial Protection Commission Act,” which would turn the CFPB into a commission. The CFPB’s single director structure has allowed the Bureau to successfully fulfill its public interest mission similar to single directors leading the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and the Social Security Administration (SSA). The single director is also fully accountable to answer to the President and to Congress. Congress must oppose Rep. Bill Huizenga’s (Mich.) “Commission of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Act” (H.R. 3445),8 which would establish a five-member bipartisan commission to lead the CFPB, with at least two commissioners selected for their financial industry experience.
A commission structure would subject the CFPB to gridlock, infighting and inertia, and make it more difficult for the Bureau to act to protect consumers. The supposed benefits of a commission are also questionable as members of bipartisan commissions such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) have been illegally fired, leaving the commissions boards largely empty.
6 Taking Account of Bureaucrat’s Spending Act of 2025. TABS Act. H.R. 654. 119th Cong. (2025). 7 The CFPB Budget Integrity Act. H.R. 3141. 119th Cong. (2025).
8 Commission of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Act. H.R. 3445. 119th Cong. (2025).
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Congress must oppose the “CFPB–Inspector General (IG) Reform Act of 2025” (H.R. 2513),9 which would unnecessarily establish a new inspector general for the CFPB. The CFPB already reports to Congress twice a year and is accountable to the independent Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and to the Government Accountability Office. H.R. 2513, offered by Rep. Meuser (Pa.) only hinders the Bureau’s mission and would force the CFPB to address wasteful, duplicative oversight demands, which is especially unnecessary as the CFPB already operates under more oversight than other financial regulators.
Congress must oppose the bills below, which add wasteful, duplicative and unnecessary hurdles to the CFPB’s enforcement and regulatory functions. The Bureau must be able to continue fulfilling its consumer protection mandate through robust enforcement, regulation, and supervision. The bills below only serve to create cumbersome requirements that would greatly slow down or even stop CFPB enforcement and rulemaking efforts.
● The “CFPB Dual Mandate and Economic Analysis Act” (H.R. 2183)10 offered by Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.) frustrates the CFPB’s ability to fulfill its mission by subjecting all proposed guidance, rules, regulations, and orders to an additional layer of bureaucratic approval and unnecessary analysis through a newly created Office of Economic Analysis. The CFPB is already subject to numerous analytical and review requirements, including extra requirements not applied to other financial regulators, and this bill would add unnecessary and wasteful time and expense to the rulemaking process.
● The “Transparency in CFPB Cost-Benefit Analysis Act” (H.R. 2331)11 offered by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (Ga.), creates extra requirements for proposed CFPB rules, including requiring quantitative and qualitative assessments on the costs of each proposed regulation, alternatives to the regulation, and effects of the regulation on “economic activity, efficiency, competition and capital formation” as well as “costs imposed on State, local and tribal entities.” This bill is wholly unnecessary as the Dodd-Frank Act and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) already require the CFPB to consider and explain benefits and costs, the potential reduction of access, the impact of proposed rules on companies, reasonable alternatives, and the basis and purpose of any proposed rules.
● The “Making the CFPB Accountable to Small Business Act of 2025” (H.R. 1606)12 offered by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (Wis.), requires the CFPB to jump through additional hoops to minimize small business impacts. These steps are wholly unnecessary as the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (SBREFA) already requires the CFPB to assess the impact on small businesses, to consult early with representatives of small business entities likely to be impacted by CFPB regulations, and to consider their feedback. Under SBREFA, the CFPB also must report on the feedback received on likely impacts to small entities.
9 Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection-Inspector General Reform Act of 2025. CFPB-IG Reform Act of 2025. 119th Cong. (2025).
10 CFPB Dual Mandate and Economic Analysis Act. H.R. 2183. 119th Cong. (2025).
11 Transparency in CFPB Cost-Benefit Analysis Act. H.R. 2331. 119th Cong. (2025).
12 Making the CFPB Accountable to Small Business Act of 2025. H.R. 1606. 119th Cong. (2025).
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● The “Rectifying UDAAP Act” (H.R. 1652)13 offered by Rep. Andy Barr (Ky.), would significantly limit the CFPB’s UDAAP (unfair, deceptive, abusive acts and practices) authority and heighten standards of proof required for the CFPB to successfully bring enforcement actions. For example, to demonstrate “abusiveness,” the CFPB would be required to show an act or practice “intentionally” interferes with a consumer’s ability to understand a material term or condition, which may be nearly impossible to show despite documented harm.14 Institutions that have engaged in misconduct would also be given a free pass to “cure” misconduct rather than face accountability for harmful practices.15
● The “Civil Investigative Demand Reform Act of 2025” (H.R. 1653)16 offered by Rep. Andy Barr (Ky.) adds burdensome steps that will slow down and make it more difficult for the CFPB to obtain civil investigative demands (CIDs) that are needed to begin timely investigations into wrongdoing. The CFPB already provides a detailed description of potential violations when it issues a CID and has a robust meet and confer process. Companies already use challenges to the CIDs to hinder and slow investigations into lawbreaking, and this bill would give them more tools to block compliance.
● The draft “Business of Insurance Regulatory Reform Act of 2025”17 offered by Rep. Bryan Steil (Wis.) would not meaningfully change or reduce the actual federal oversight of the insurance industry. Currently, the CFPB conducts extremely minimal insurance-related work that is focused on consumer financial education18 and ensuring that credit cards and other loan products do not tack on costs for credit insurance that consumers do not want or need. The draft legislation is unnecessary given the CFPB’s essentially non-existent oversight of the insurance industry and is solely intended to chill any regulatory efforts by any federal agency over the insurance industry, including consumer protection.
● The discussion draft to require federal financial institutions to jointly review the cumulative impact of regulations (currently without a sponsor)19 creates unnecessary and duplicative mandates. Federal statutes that govern federal agency rulemaking such as the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and the Paperwork Reduction Act already require agencies to consider the impact of their regulations.
The discussion draft to amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act to provide procedures for guidance (currently without a sponsor)20 would create additional bureaucratic and unnecessary hurdles when the agency issues guidance documents. This bill would also create an unnecessary procedural barrier for assessing civil money penalties and limit the CFPB’s flexibility in handling civil money penalties.
13 Rectifying UDAAP Act. H.R. 1652. H.R. 1652. 119th Cong. (2025).
14 Rectifying UDAAP Act. H.R. 1652. H.R. 1652. 119th Cong. §5(d)(1)(A). (2025).
15 Rectifying UDAAP Act. H.R. 1652. H.R. 1652. 119th Cong. §6.
16 Civil Investigative Demand Reform Act of 2025. H.R. 1653. 119th Cong. (2025).
17 Business of Insurance Regulatory Reform Act of 2025. Draft bill. 119th Cong. (2025).
18 CFPB. “Learning about insurance.” August 25, 2022.
19 To require the Federal financial institutions regulatory agencies to jointly review the cumulative impact of regulations issued by such agencies, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
20 To amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to provide procedures for guidance issued by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
● The “Restoring Court Authority Over Litigation Act of 2025 (H.R. 3213)” offered by Rep. Fitzgerald (Wis.)21 limits the ability of the CFPB and other agencies to enforce the law, and hold financial institutions accountable for unfair, deceptive, and abusive conduct. Agencies are within their full authority to sanction misconduct, regardless of the bad actor. Limiting an agency’s ability to enforce the law would have unintended downstream impacts and hurt the effort to hold repeat offenders accountable for misconduct.
Congress must oppose any legislation that would repeal or weaken Dodd-Frank authorities that help the CFPB keep the financial marketplace stable, transparent, and safe.
The “Small Lenders Exempt from New Data and Excessive Reporting (LENDER) Act” (H.R. 941) offered by Rep. Hill significantly weakens Dodd-Frank Section 1071 by exempting financial institutions from Section 1071 requirements and making them voluntary. Such an extreme measure would only hurt small businesses and farms, both of which are important engines for economic growth and household wealth building. Dodd-Frank Section 1071 and the CFPB’s final 1071 rule make it possible to identify community development, small business, and farm capital needs, to improve transparency in small business and farm credit and lending markets, and to assess and enforce compliance with fair lending and anti-discrimination statutes. Further undermining and delaying the collection of data will make it harder to address the credit needs of communities and to see patterns of discrimination in small business and farm credit markets — discrimination which ultimately disadvantages certain small businesses and farms, which results in a less competitive marketplace that hurts all small business owners and farmers and the communities they serve.
The Bank Loan Privacy Act (H.R. 2885) offered by Rep. Ross (N. Car.) would delay or ultimately prevent the collection and disclosure of the critical small business and farm loan data under Section 1071. The legislation would require the CFPB to re-promulgate rules on whether to delete or modify data collected under 1071, a statutory requirement that has already been delayed for 15 years, purportedly to protect privacy, although the data mirrors the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data disclosure and, like HMDA, does not disclose any information that identifies loan applicants or borrowers.
● The discussion draft to eliminate the market monitoring functions of the CFPB (currently without a sponsor)22 would gut the CFPB’s market monitoring authority, which critically helps the CFPB identify and address emerging and novel consumer risks including new technologies in non-traditional markets. This authority helps the CFPB monitor key risk areas, such as risks in credit card markets and scams targeted toward servicemembers.
The discussion draft to limit the civil penalty fund (currently without a sponsor)23 would undermine the CFPB’s ability to fully and flexibly use the civil penalty fund to address consumer harms. This bill significantly limits who is entitled to collect from the civil penalty fund and pushes non-disbursed money straight back to the Treasury instead of setting the money aside for future victims of financial malfeasance. This would mean that consumers
21 The Restoring Court Authority Over Litigation Act of 2025. H.R. 3213. 119th Cong. (2025). 22 To amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to eliminate the market monitoring functions of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025). 23 To amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to direct civil penalties to victims and transfer excess funds to the Treasury, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
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who have been unlawfully financially harmed by firms that enter bankruptcy would be unlikely to receive compensation for their losses.
The discussion draft to amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act to revise the structure and maximum amounts of civil money penalties, and to provide incentives for the self-reporting of violations (without a sponsor)24 would let financial wrongdoers off the hook simply because they admitted to wrongdoing and stop the CFPB from being able to break up abusive contract terms.
The discussion draft that requires the Secretary of the Treasury to submit a list of unused Dodd-Frank authorities (without a sponsor)25 may inaccurately identify authorities that may not have had a final rulemaking, but are still nonetheless critical to avoid a repeat of another 2008 financial crisis.
Congress should not support legislation that further undermines consumer protections and consumer rights. Several pieces of legislation noticed for today’s hearing will further chip away at important consumer protections for some of the most preyed upon communities, including older adults and military families.
The Credit Access and Inclusion Act offered by Rep. Kim (Cal.)26 would preempt stronger state privacy protections for utility customers and tenants, which could potentially lower their credit scores or harm their ability to get jobs or future rental housing. This is a bill that consumer, utility rights, and housing groups have opposed for over a decade.
The Small Dollar Loan Certainty Act offered by Rep. Kim (Cal.)27 only offers certainty for consumers to get ripped off by exempting small-dollar loans from Truth in Lending Act protections such as APR disclosures. The bill also undermines the CFPB’s ability to order civil money penalties for TILA violations and would strip individuals of their right to hold small dollar lenders accountable in court for TILA violations.
The discussion draft to amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act to require the attestation of certain information as part of the consumer complaint submission process (currently without a sponsor)28 would greatly decrease transparency and accountability for financial bad actors. This bill would allow financial institutions to unilaterally close filed complaints and seal currently publicly available complaint narratives on the consumer complaints database. The bill threatens people who file complaints with possible perjury charges. Not only does the bill seek to intimidate people to discourage them from filing complaints, sealing the narratives will protect repeat offenders and hide patterns of wrongdoing.
24 To amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to revise the structure and maximum amounts of civil monetary penalties, and to provide incentives for the self-reporting of violations. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025). 25 To require the Secretary of the Treasury to submit a report that contains a list of unused authorities in the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and in the amendments made by such Act, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
26 The Credit Access and Inclusion Act. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
27 The Small Dollar Loan Certainty Act. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
28 To amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to require the attestation of certain information as part of the consumer complaint submission process, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
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The FCRA Liability Harmonization Act offered by Rep. Loudermilk (Ga.)29 is an anti consumer bill that would dramatically reduce accountability for credit reporting agencies when they violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by eliminating punitive damages, no matter how egregious the violation. The bill also caps both statutory damages and actual damages for class actions to $500,000, no matter how many thousands or millions of consumers have been harmed or the extent of their losses. This bill has been opposed by consumer advocates since it was first introduced around the time of the 2017 Equifax data breach that compromised the data of 147 million individuals.
The discussion draft to amend FCRA to limit liability for data resellers offered by Rep. Lawler (New York)30 unnecessarily lets these companies off the hook for errors. Data resellers are already covered under the FCRA’s accuracy requirements. What the bill does is limit the reseller’s liability if the company from which it purchased the data made the same error, even if the reseller knew or should have known that the information was inaccurate.
The discussion draft to undo current SEC authority to regulate forced arbitration31 (currently without a sponsor) would strip away any ability for the SEC to consider how and when to regulate forced arbitration, a practice that funnels investor cases into a private and non-transparent proceeding rather than allowing an investor to file their case in court.
At a time when the CFPB is facing waves of attacks in order to stop its important work to serve the public, Congress must vigorously oppose all of the above-mentioned bills and work instead to keep the CFPB intact, independent, strong, and with a secure funding stream, exactly as envisioned in the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. As Congress works through both budget reconciliation and the appropriations process, once again, Congress must vigorously oppose any legislative efforts to weaken or change the structure of the CFPB.
Sincerely,
20/20 Vision
Accountable.US/Accountable.NOW
Action Center on Race and the Economy
American Association of People with Disabilities
American Economic Liberties Project
American Muslim Health Professionals (AMHP)
Americans for Financial Reform
Arkansas Community Organizations
Association for Housing and Neighborhood Development.
Center for Digital Democracy
29 The FCRA Liability Harmonization Act. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025). See also Warmbrodt, Zachary. “Finance industry's deregulation drive faces new threat with Equifax.” Politico. September 13, 2017. (“The congressman instructed the committee that ‘he would like to see no further action on H.R. 2359, pending a full and complete investigation into the Equifax breach,’ according to Loudermilk spokeswoman Shawna Mercer”). 30 To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require resellers of information contained in consumer reports to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of such information before transmitting such information, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
31 To repeal unused authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission related to restricting certain mandatory predispute arbitration, and for other purposes. [Discussion draft]. 119th Cong. (2025).
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Center for Economic Justice
Center for Elder Law & Justice
Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research (CLEAR) Center for Responsible Lending
Center for Survivor Agency and Justice
Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy, and Research Organization (CLLARO) Community Change Action
Community Economic Development Association of Michigan (CEDAM) Consumer Action
Consumer Federation of America
Consumer Reports
Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety
Economic Action Maryland Fund
Economic Empowerment Center DBA Lending Link
Faith in Action
Faith in New Jersey
Forward Justice Action Network
Government Information Watch
Hawaiian Community Assets
HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance Health Care for America Now (HCAN)
Hispanic Brotherhood, Inc.
Impact Fund
Indivisible Bellingham
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Just Solutions
JustUS Coordinating Council
KGACLC
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Mommieactivist and sons
National Association of Consumer Advocates
National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC)
National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients) National Consumers League
National Disability Institute
National Employment Law Project
National Black Justice Collective (NBJC)
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center
New Yorkers for Responsible Lending
Open Markets Institute
Oregon Consumer Justice
Oregon Consumer League
People Power United
Popular Democracy
Public Citizen
Public Good Law Center
Public Justice
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Public Justice Center
Rise Economy
South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center Student Borrower Protection Center Texas Appleseed
The Neighborhood Developers
TURN-The Utility Reform Network UnidosUS
William E. Morris Institute for Justice Woodstock Institute
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