The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director’s decision, conveyed to Congress recently, to no longer defend a provision in the Consumer Financial Protection Act limiting the president’s ability to remove the director ”does not mean the Bureau will stop its work,” the director said during a speech Wednesday in Rosemont, Ill.
CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger referenced her recent decision to no longer defend the provision, challenged in CFPB v. Seila Law, against the backdrop of the administration’s recent request for Supreme Court review of the case. She noted the following three points made in her recent letter to lawmakers, as follows:
“First, uncertainty regarding the constitutionality of the CFPA’s removal provision has caused unnecessary delay in many of our enforcement and regulatory actions. Final resolution of the question will eliminate that delay, which is why we’ve urged the Supreme Court to take the case.
“Second, my decision to no longer defend the removal provision does not mean that the Bureau will stop its work. Far from it. I remain fully committed to fulfilling the Bureau’s statutory responsibilities. We will continue to defend the actions that the Bureau takes now and has taken in the past.
“Finally, if a court does hold that the for-cause removal provision is unconstitutional, that should not affect our ability to carry out the Bureau’s important mission. As the brief in Seila Law explains, Congress directed that should any provision of the Bureau’s statute be found unconstitutional, the remainder of the Act will not be affected.”
Director Kraninger’s Speech at the National Consumer Empowerment Conference in Rosemont, Illinois