GOP Blocks Dems on Trump CFPB Changes  05/14 06:14

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by a group of 
Democrats to roll back several policy changes made under President Donald Trump 
to the nation's consumer protection laws, ranging from how medical debts are 
collected to overdraft fees and consumer protections for members of the 
military.

   The push by Senate Democrats on Wednesday was a maneuver to force vulnerable 
GOP senators to take politically difficult votes in an election year as 
Democrats try to hammer Republicans on the economy. The Senate rejected three 
Democratic resolutions, largely along party lines.

   The votes were tied to rule or regulatory changes made by the Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau since the Trump administration took over the bureau 
in February 2025. The bureau has rescinded 67 policies under its acting 
director, Russell Vought, who is also President Donald Trump's budget director. 
Vought has publicly said that his goal is to effectively dismantle the agency.

   "The Trump Administration is hell-bent on destroying the agency," said Sen. 
Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking 
Committee and the top defender of the bureau in Congress.

   Warren added that the changes at the bureau signal that "the Trump 
Administration has abandoned consumers and is making life more expensive for 
them."

   The Democrats offered more than a dozen other resolutions by voice vote to 
roll back the administration's CFPB policies, but Republicans blocked each one.

   The votes could be used as ammunition against vulnerable GOP senators up for 
reelection this year, including Susan Collins of Maine, Dan Sullivan of Alaska 
and John Cornyn of Texas. Collins voted with Democrats on two of the three 
resolutions.

   One vote Democrats sought was for the CFPB's policy change on overdraft 
fees. The Biden Administration issued guidance in 2024 requiring banks to 
obtain their customers' affirmative consent before charging an overdraft fee. 
That guidance was repealed under President Trump, which Democrats argue will 
lead to more Americans paying overdraft fees. The Senate voted down the 
resolution 47-53.

   "When they got rid of this rule, it showed that (President Trump) didn't 
care about Americans living paycheck to paycheck," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen 
of Maryland.

   Congress created the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and 
subsequent recession, designed to operate as an independent financial regulator 
with broad enforcement authority over consumer financial products and services. 
The bureau estimated in 2024 that it had returned $17.5 billion to American 
consumers and had imposed $4 billion in fines and penalties against financial 
companies.

   But since February 2025, the CFPB has largely been inoperable. The bulk of 
the bureau's staff remains under orders not to work, and much of the CFPB's 
business these days is to unwind previous work the bureau did under President 
Joe Biden, a Democrat, and in Trump's first term. The bureau's operating budget 
is expected to shrink as well after Trump's big tax and spending cuts law 
reduced the amount of money the bureau receives from the Federal Reserve.

   "Russell Vought is unilaterally defacing this agency and taking it apart," 
said Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island.

   Republicans have defended President Trump's changes at the bureau. 
Republicans largely see the CFPB as an agency with too much centralized power 
and unaccountable to Congress, and they have repeatedly attempted to diminish 
it since its creation.

   "I can't think of a worse way to govern than the Biden administration's 
approach to the CFPB and the playbook that they used time and time again, 
putting onerous pressure on small businesses," said Sen. Tim Scott of South 
Carolina and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

   Democrats used the Congressional Review Act, a law allows Congress an 
opportunity to overturn rules issued by federal agencies once those rules are 
finalized. The 1996 law was used sparingly in its first two decades, but its 
use increased during Trump's first term, when a Republican-controlled Congress 
overturned more than a dozen rules finalized during President Barack Obama's 
Democratic administration. Democrats, in turn, used the law in 2021 to overturn 
several Trump-era policies.