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AFR Statement on House Financial Services Subcommittee Hearing on Proposals To Weaken CFPB
Washington, DC – Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of more than 250 national and state organizations working together …

Incredibly, last week, in a letter to Professor Elizabeth Warren, House Financial Services Committee chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), along with key subcommittee chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), all but accused Professor Elizabeth Warren of lying to Congress in her recent, excellent testimony on the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Implementation team.

Dear Representative:
On behalf of the NAACP, our nation’s oldest, largest and most widely-recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization, I strongly urge you to oppose and vote against any funding cuts to the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The recently introduced Responsible Consumer Financial Protection Regulation Act, H.R. 1121, aims to create a five- member commission to carry out the duties of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Consumers Union, the nonprofit publishers of Consumer Reports®, respectfully disagrees with this proposed change to the CFPB’s structure and strongly supports a single director as the most efficient and effective way to run the CFPB.

AFR submitted a comment on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule for Swaps Execution Facilities (SEFs). The Dodd-Frank Act gives the SEC authority over the trading of security-based swaps, such as the credit
default swaps that brought down AIG and helped trigger the financial crisis. The AFR comment criticized the proposal for not following the expressed intent of Congress that cleared security-based swaps be traded on open exchanges with transparent and competitive pricing. The current SEC rule would permit the continuation of swaps trading in opaque bilateral transactions. This type of trading helps big swaps dealers but is harmful to derivatives users and could increase systemic instability.

April 5th, 2011
Dear Member of Congress,
On behalf of the undersigned organizations, we urge you to support full funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Anything less would …