The Senate will consider the confirmation of a permanent director for the federal consumer financial protection agency within the next couple of weeks under unanimous consent, the Senate leader’s schedule shows. Exact timing is unclear; the Senate is in pro forma schedule until the week of Nov. 26.
Kathleen (“Kathy”) Kraninger was nominated to the position as director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP, formerly known as the CFPB) in mid-June by President Donald Trump; she sat for a Senate Banking Committee hearing on her nomination the next month. The committee voted (and along party lines) in August to recommend her for confirmation, by a 13-12 vote.
If confirmed in a Senate vote (which is likely), Kraninger would succeed acting director John (“Mick”) Mulvaney in heading up the agency – and would be the first permanent director since Richard Cordray resigned about a year ago (and ultimately ran for governor of Ohio, but lost in the election last week).
Kraninger, who turns 43 this year, has spent the last more than 20 years mostly working as a staff member for Congress or for federal agencies. She also spent some time in the Peace Corps, working in Ukraine, according to a biography of her posted by a group she addressed as a conference speaker in September 2017.
Since March of last year, she has served as associate director for general government for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which Mulvaney also oversees as director. In that role, according to her bio, she “oversees budget development and execution for a number of executive branch agencies including the Departments of Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security (DHS), Housing and Urban Development, Transportation (DOT), and Treasury.” (BCFP is not listed in her bio among the agencies.)
Before joining OMB, she served as the clerk of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, the bio states, noting that committee “provides DHS with its $40 billion discretionary budget.”
Other congressional staffing positions include those on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security as well as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.