Warren puts consumer hit from CFPB rollback at $26.5 billion
The Massachusetts Democrat says fee-rule reversals and dropped enforcement work drove the cost, as Russell Vought faces Senate scrutiny.
By Frankie Delgado · News Reporter
3 min read
Sen. Elizabeth Warren says the Trump administration’s remake of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already left Americans on the hook for as much as $26.5 billion.
The Massachusetts Democrat laid out the estimate in a report released Thursday, arguing that the biggest costs flow from the bureau’s decisions under acting director Russell Vought to reverse limits on credit-card late fees and overdraft charges.
The fight lands in the Senate spotlight as Vought faces an oversight hearing Thursday on the bureau’s direction. Senators are expected to press him on the fee rules, dismissed enforcement cases, abandoned consent orders and an allegation that the agency recently took 15 years of consumer data off the CFPB website.
The White House and the CFPB did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to CNBC.
Fee rules drive most of the estimate
Warren’s report assigns up to $15 billion of the alleged consumer cost to the CFPB’s decision to walk away from a rule that would have capped most credit-card late fees at $8. The bureau had previously estimated that the rule would save consumers about $10 billion a year.
The report adds another $7.5 billion tied to the repeal of the CFPB’s overdraft-fee rule, which would have limited many banks to charging $5 for overdrafts.
Together, those two changes account for $22.5 billion of Warren’s total estimate. The remaining roughly $4 billion, according to the report, comes from more than three dozen enforcement actions and settlements that the CFPB dropped, narrowed or abandoned, including some that Democrats say would have sent money directly to consumers.
A watchdog at the center of a partisan brawl
The CFPB has been a favorite target for Republicans and a signature project for Warren, who helped conceive and build the agency after the 2008 financial crisis. That history is fueling one of Washington’s sharper consumer-finance fights.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, his administration has cut bureau staffing, pulled back Biden-era rules and reduced or dropped numerous enforcement actions. Administration officials have described the shift as a return to the agency’s core mission.
Republicans have defended the changes as a needed check on a regulator they view as too aggressive. Democrats, led by Warren, say the administration has weakened a watchdog meant to police unfair and deceptive financial practices.
Warren also sent Vought a letter before Thursday’s hearing listing what she described as congressional oversight requests that remain unanswered during his time running the bureau.
Trump’s pick waits in the wings
The clash comes as senators consider Trump’s choice to lead the CFPB permanently: Brian Johnson, a former bureau deputy director who later became a Capital One executive.
Johnson’s nomination gives the fee fight and enforcement pullback extra weight. If confirmed, he would inherit an agency already reshaped by Vought’s tenure and still under fire from Democrats who say consumers are paying the price.
This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.