Consumer Law

Barney Frank Introduces CFPA Bill

By Deepak Gupta

by Deepak Gupta

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank has formally introduced President Obama's plan for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The bill adopts the Administration's proposal with a few 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 Supervisor (NBS), a new prudential regulator that would merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). The introduced bill takes no position on that issue, making references to the OCC and OTS instead of the NBS.

You can read the full text of the bill here. An excerpt from Rep. Frank's press release is below the jump.

"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 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).

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on July 09, 2009 (boomark / email).