The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Consumer advisory board members axed
Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired the agency’s 25-member advisory board Wednesday, days after some of its members criticized his leadership of the watchdog agency.
The CFPB said it will revamp the Consumer Advisory Board, known as the CAB, in the fall with all new members.
The panel has traditionally played an influential role in advising the CFPB’s leadership on new regulations and policies. But some members, who include prominent consumer advocates, academics and industry executives, began to complain that Mulvaney was ignoring them and making unwise decisions about the agency’s future.
On Monday, 11 CAB members held a news conference and criticized Mulvaney for, among other things, cancel- ing legally required meetings with the group.
On Wednesday, group mem- bers were notified that they were being replaced — and that they could not reapply for spots on the new board.
In a statement, the agen- cy’s spokesman, John Czwart- acki, took a final swipe at the group. “The outspoken mem- bers of the Consumer Advisory Board seem more con- cerned about protecting their taxpayer funded junkets to Washington, D.C., and being wined and dined by the Bureau than protecting consumers,” he said.
Revamping the board is part of the CFPB’s new approach to reaching out to stakeholders to “increase high quality feedback,” the bureau said in an email to the group. The CFPB will hold more town halls and roundtable discussions, the letter said, and the new CAB will have fewer members.
But the dismissal of the members is likely to exacer- bate concerns among Demo- crats that Mulvaney is weaken- ing the consumer watchdog.
“Mick Mulvaney has no intention of putting consum
ers above financial firms that cheat them. This is what happens when you put someone in charge of an agency they think shouldn’t exist,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who helped conceive of the bureau, said in a statement.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said: “Mulvaney has proven once again he would rather cozy up with payday lenders and industry insiders than listen to consumer advocates who want to make sure hard-working Americans are not cheated by financial scams.”
As a congressman, Mulvaney repeatedly criticized the agency, calling it a “joke” and saying it needed to be reined in. Since being appointed acting director by President Don- ald Trump in November, Mul- vaney has launched a top-to- bottom review of the bureau’s operations, stripped enforcement powers from a CFPB unit responsible for pursuing discrimination cases and pro
posed that lawmakers curb the agency’s powers.
Last week, Mulvaney sided with payday lenders who sued the CFPB to block implementation of new industry regulations. The CFPB filed a joint motion with the payday lend- ers asking the judge to delay the case until the bureau completes a review of the rules, which could take years.
“Firing current members of the advisory board is a huge red flag in this administration’s
ongoing erosion of critical consumer financial protections that help average families,” said Chi Chi Wu, an attorney for the National Consumer Law Center who has been a board member since 2016.
The Consumer Advisory Board is required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law. Members also included the head of retail banking at Citi, the founder of NerdWal- let and a director at Texas Appleseed, a public interest law center. Members of two
other boards — the Community Bank Advisory Council and the Credit Union Advisory Council — were also dismissed.