Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk. I am opposed to it in its current form. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill and will not kill the bill or send it back to…
Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
I am opposed to it in its current form.
Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill and will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.
Mr. Speaker, just a few years after a financial meltdown that crashed our economy and punished middle class families, some politicians here want to go back to the days when Wall Street wrote its own rules and consumers got the short end of the stick. We all know how that worked out. It brought a tremendous financial crisis.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau emerged out of the ashes of that financial disaster. Congress had learned a hard lesson: consumers needed a watchdog. That is what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is all about. It is a watchdog for consumers. It stands up for people, including students, seniors, and veterans who are often targeted by predatory financial lenders with shady products. Why on earth would we want to hamper the CFPB?
In its short lifetime, the Bureau has secured more than $3 billion for nearly 10 million consumers, including members of the military. It has received more than 270,000 consumer complaints. It has taken action against any payday lenders and debt collectors who take unfair advantage of our Nation's consumers.
The CFPB is working to protect consumers from some of the worst abuses in the financial marketplace, but the bill we are considering today would undermine its work.
First, the bill changes the structure of the CFPB to a five-member commission instead of a single director. In a Congress that is so divided and dysfunctional, it is not fair to mire the Bureau in political gridlock and make it less able to carry out its mission.
Second, this bill would defund the CFPB. Under the guise of transparency, its opponents want to cripple the Bureau by tying it up in Congress. They say this will result in significant cost savings. If they don't fund it properly, of course it will end up in savings.
We would also save money on food inspection if we would only stop inspecting food, but that doesn't mean we would be better off. Defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes at the expense of American consumers.
The bill also allows other bank regulators who failed to protect consumers to overrule the CFPB, and it cripples the Bureau's ability to oversee consumer financial markets.
Our constituents don't want us to weaken consumer protections. They actually want us to extend consumer protections to include protection of our personal data and information.
Today's motion to recommit builds on this work and makes sure that Congress is focused on consumer protection. This motion ensures that seniors, servicemembers, students, and other consumers affected by security breaches are promptly notified that their data has been compromised.
Even more importantly, it makes sure that consumers know what steps to take to recover from and how to prevent additional financial fraud. In the event of a personal data breach, companies need to do more than simply alert consumers that it happened. They need to work with the CFPB to inform consumers about how to remove fraudulent charges and monitor their credit going forward.
The motion also addresses a growing problem of predatory lenders targeting our servicemembers and their families. These lenders are taking advantage of loopholes in current law to profit from bad loans that have outrageous interest rates.
They take advantage of our servicemembers by obscuring these interest rates. Some lenders even target our servicemembers looking for home mortgages. This activity is reprehensible, and Congress should stop this activity.
Students are another population this motion would protect. For example, the CFPB recently started investigating campus financial products, such as school-issued debit cards that students use to access financial aid. These cards often have hidden fees, which can add up for students and families who are already struggling to pay for college.
What makes this even worse is that many college campuses don't have fee-free ATMs, so students are being hit with debit card fees and then hit again when they want to access that money. The CFPB needs to be able to make sure that banks aren't taking advantage of our students.
Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit will make sure that we pass a bill that is fair to consumers, not just banks.
I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on these commonsense changes, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
