July 8, 2009
Frank Introduces Obama Administration’s Plan to Increase Consumer Protection
Administration’s plan has the Chairman’s full support
Washington, DC — Today, House Financial Services Committee
Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) formally introduced President Obama’s
plan to strengthen consumer protections as a part of a broader
financial regulatory restructuring. H.R. 3126 would establish the
Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), a powerful independent
agency with a range of rulemaking, information-gathering, supervisory,
and enforcement tools to better protect consumers who purchase
financial products from banks and non-bank financial institutions.
“I am pleased to introduce this bill which addresses an issue at the
heart of the financial crisis. Recent reports about the lack of
mortgage mortifications and increases in various fees only reinforce
the need for this bill, which is already very clear,” Frank said. “I
intend to mark this up by the end of July, and we have already begun
to hold hearings on this subject and have had a great deal of
consultation among members. I am confident that we will produce a bill
that will provide greater consumer protections while in no way
burdening the legitimate activities of responsible banking.”
The bill introduces the Obama Administration’s proposal to create the
CFPA with certain limited exceptions. Unlike the Administration’s
draft, the bill preserves the current federal banking regulators’ role
to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In addition, the
Administration’s proposal presupposes the creation of the National
Bank Supervisory (NBS), a new prudential regulator that would merge
the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of
Thrift Supervision (OTS). While this is consistent with the
Administration’s goals for regulatory restructuring, these
considerations will be done at later date. Accordingly, the introduced
bill makes references to the OCC and OTS, instead of the NBS.
The following Representatives joined Chairman Frank today
as original co-sponsors of the bill: Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA),
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Mel Watt (D-NC), Gary
Ackerman (D-NY), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Brad
Miller (D-NC), Al Green (D-TX), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Jackie Speier
(D-CA), and Alan Grayson (D-FL).