Trump administration strips consumer watchdog office of enforcement powers in lending discrimination

Trump administration strips consumer watchdog office of enforcement powers in lending discrimination cases (WaPo)

By Renae Merle February 1

The Trump administration has stripped enforcement powers from a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unit responsible for pursuing discrimination cases, part of a broader effort to reshape an agency it criticized as acting too aggressively.

The move to sharply restrict the responsibilities of the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity comes about two months after President Trump installed his budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, at the head of the bureau. The office previously used its powers to force payouts in several prominent cases, including settlements from lenders it alleged had systematically charged minorities higher interest rates than they had for whites.

That unit now will move inside the office of the director, where staffers will be focused on “advocacy, coordination and education,” according to an email Mulvaney sent them this week. They will no longer have responsibility for enforcement and day-to-day oversight of companies, he wrote.

The reorganization comes as Mulvaney looks to remake the agency into one that shows far more restraint than it did under his Democratic predecessor, Richard Cordray.

Beyond moving the fair-lending office, Mulvaney has also dropped a lawsuit against payday lenders and said the agency will reconsider rules the financial industry complained would be particularly onerous. He also updated the bureau’s mission statement to include addressing “outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations.”
***
more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/02/01/trump-administration-strips-consumer-watchdog-office-of-enforcement-powers-against-financial-firms-in-lending-discrimination-cases/?utm_term=.1326089e28c4




That last para is the killer. This is carte blanche to reverse the whole mission of the CFPB.

(Apologies if dupe -- I've been catching up on the news lately)