Entrance to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Washington, D.C. (Source: Shutterstock)
By selecting Rohit Chopra to run the CFPB, President-elect Joe Biden has sent a clear message that he wants the agency to return to a much stricter regulatory regime, CFPB-watchers said Tuesday.
Chopra currently serves as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, but earlier in his career, he helped Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) organize the consumer bureau.
"It's terrific that President-elect Biden picked Rohit to run the CFPB," Warren said after Biden announced the nomination. "He's been a fearless champion for consumers at the FTC and will be a fearless champion leading the consumer agency."
House Financial Services Committee ranking Republican Patrick McHenry was far less pleased with Chopra's nomination.
"This is proof that the Biden team is pandering to members of the far left who want to weaponize the CFPB to go after financial services companies they simply don't like," he said. "Mr. Chopra has made it clear his agenda includes limiting consumer choice, driving up cost of credit for everyone through restrictive policies, and hamstringing job creators through overregulation."
Biden has been widely expected to replace current CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger, whose tenure has been marked by a less robust enforcement and supervisory regime than that of her predecessor, Richard Cordray. Chopra worked under Cordray at the agency.
Chopra previously served as the CFPB's assistant director in charge of the agency's student lending efforts. In 2011, he was appointed to serve as the CFPB's student loan ombudsman, a new position established in the Dodd-Frank Act.
In that position, Chopra became embroiled in a controversy involving two Indiana credit unions. In 2014, he wrote a blog post that listed four credit unions and 10 banks that he said did not disclose the terms of the contracts under which they would market and sell financial products to their affiliated university's partners.
Among those listed were Purdue Federal Credit Union ($1.5 billion, West Lafayette, Ind.) and Indiana University Credit Union ($1.3 billion, Bloomington, Ind.) — neither of which had marketing agreements with the universities.
As a result, the CFPB corrected the blog post, deleting the credit unions.
The CFPB director's position is subject to Senate confirmation. If Biden wishes to replace Kraninger before Chopra is confirmed, he may name a current CFPB employee as long as that person has been at the agency for at least 90 days and has a senior pay grade.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who is likely to serve as Senate Banking Committee Chairman during the 117th Congress, said he was pleased with the nomination.
"I am confident that Mr. Chopra will not only return the CFPB to its central mission – protecting consumers – but also ensure the agency plays a leading role in combatting racial inequities in our financial system," he said.
The Banking Committee is the Senate committee that will consider Chopra's nomination.
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