InfoBytes Blog
Senate Democrats’ minority report criticizes the CFPB
On March 10, Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) released a minority staff report titled “Consumers Under Attack: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Director Kraninger.” Specifically, the report faulted the Bureau for, among other allegations, purportedly protecting payday lenders, failing to properly scrutinize student loan servicers, and failing to enforce civil rights protections. The report was released the same day Kraninger testified before the Senate Banking Committee (covered by InfoBytes here). Among other things, the report argues that the CFPB’s proposed debt collection rule and supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (covered by InfoBytes here and a Buckley Special Alert) “does more to provide safe harbors for debt collectors than protect consumers” by not banning the collection of time-barred debt. The report also reiterates concerns over Kraninger’s decision to no longer defend the CFPB’s constitutionality (covered by InfoBytes here), as well as her decision last year to delay certain ability-to-repay provisions of the agency’s 2017 final rule covering “Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans” (covered by InfoBytes here), which has led to stays of enforcement actions.