Treasury Aide Says Consumer Bureau Job Likely Filled by July
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be able to discuss regulatory options even before it has a confirmed permanent director, a position that must be filled before the agency can use its full rulemaking authority, the Treasury Department’s general counsel George Madison said today.
“What we can do is we will work on, on the policy side, on what the regulations could be,” Madison said. “I think it’s likely that they could go out for comment even before the transfer date.”
Madison also said that the bureau will probably have a permanent director in place by July 21, the date when existing federal agencies transfer their authority to the new entity.
“I’d expect there to be a director by then,” Madison said, speaking to reporters after a speech at a Women in Housing and Finance luncheon in Washington. He declined to speculate when a permanent director might be nominated or go through Senate confirmation.
Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who headed a congressional panel overseeing the bank bailouts, is a special adviser to the White House and the Treasury secretary and heads a team based at Treasury that is setting up the bureau. Warren has emphasized the need to improve credit card and mortgage disclosures.
Banking Products
Madison said the consumer bureau probably would start by focusing on consumer banking products before adding in oversight of payday lenders and other financial firms not traditionally monitored by bank regulators.
Federal agencies including the Federal Reserve are already preparing, using their legal authority, regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank regulation overhaul.
The bureau will take over that process, and the enforcement role, on July 21. Only a bureau with a Senate-confirmed director can issue regulations based on the new legal authority created by Dodd-Frank to regulate “unfair, abusive and deceptive products.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at rchristie4@bloomberg.net; Carter Dougherty in Washington at cdougherty6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net Lawrence Roberts at lroberts13@bloomberg.net.
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