Republicans Want to Sideline This Regulator. But It May Be Too Popular.
'With the election of President Trump, the nations consumer watchdog agency faced a quandary: how to shield the Obama-era institution from a Republican administration determined to loosen the federal governments grip on business.
In the weeks after the election, Richard Cordray, the Democrat who leads the agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, directed his staff to compile stories from ordinary Americans thanking it for resolving complaints.
The anecdotes, which he solicited in an email to share with the Trump transition team, could provide a counterpoint to critics who had cast the agency as a regulatory scourge on the economy. And implicit in his request to employees was the belief that some accolades would come from parts of the country that helped elect Mr. Trump evidence that the popularity of consumer safeguards transcends party divisions.
There must be hundreds of such stories, Mr. Cordray wrote in the email in November, which was obtained in a public records request. He added, I can think of no better vindication of the agencys consumer relief efforts.
While many federal agencies have begun to loosen the reins on the companies they regulate, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, born out of the Dodd-Frank financial law in 2010, has taken the opposite course. Congress granted it unusually broad authority and autonomy from the White House and Congress to both enforce existing federal rules and write new ones, including issuing fines against financial companies.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/business/consumer-financial-protection-bureau.html?