Dem Senators Accuse Kraninger of Stacking the Deck in Task Force Appointees
Kraninger has said she wants the task force to conduct a thorough study of the current regulatory framework and how to improve it.
Charging that CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger has stacked on a new Task Force on Federal Consumer Financial Law with people who want the gut the agency, two Democratic senators are demanding that Kraninger suspend the group’s work.
“Indeed, the members you selected make clear that the Taskforce is just a pretext to gut regulations and protections for consumers,” Senate Banking ranking Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to the director.
And the senators charged that agency officials rejected at least five consumer finance experts, with one expert charging that bureau officials asked questions about the applicant’s views on deregulation during an interview.
In announcing the initial appointments, Kraninger said she wants the task force to conduct a thorough study of the current regulatory framework and how to improve it.
CU Times reported last month that the chairman of the panel, Todd Zywicki, was an outspoken critic of the CFPB, as were several other members of the task force.
“Instead of selecting a diverse group of professionals to provide you with objective recommendations, you stacked the Taskforce with representatives of payday lenders, Wall Street banks and other industry interests,” the senators charged.
“Based on significant concerns about the Taskforce’s formation, composition and the selected Taskforce members’ conflicts-of-interest, we question the legitimacy of this Taskforce and any of its future recommendations or conclusions,” the senators said.
They also charged that Kraninger designed the task force to evade the federal Advisory Commission Act, which requires that advisory groups are objective.
They attached a list of questions they wanted addressed and gave Kraninger a Feb. 19 deadline to answer them.