Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

From NCLC: Consumers and Groups File for Right to Defend Rule Removing Medical Debt from the Credit Reports of 15M People

We received the following: HOUSTON – Multiple directly impacted people and groups have asked for permission in federal court to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) important recent rule to remove medical debt from credit reports. The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) is representing Texas truck driver David Deeds and District of Columbia resident […]

Does shutting down the CFPB violate the major questions doctrine?

The Supreme Court has described the major questions doctrine in different ways, but here is one formulation, taken from Util. Air Regul. Grp. v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302, 324 (2014): When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy,’ [the Supreme Court] […]

DOJ takes position that FTC commissioners can be fired without cause

The letter is here. The Supreme Court held otherwise in Humphrey’s Executor, but the letter calls for overturning that decision. The Supreme Court has thus far resisted attempts to get it to revisit Humphrey’s Executor but the administration’s effort ratchets up pressure to decide the issue. If the Supreme Court decides that FTC commissioners can […]

Powell testifies that Fed must continue financing CFPB

From Kyle Campbell’s report in the American Banker: “There are only two statutes that require the Fed to make Fed bank assessments and neither permit the CFPB to fund transfers,” Britt said. “So what authority, exactly, did the federal reserve have to assess the reserve banks in this manner over the last two years?” Powell […]

CFPB Attorney: I Work at the Latest Agency Being Targeted by Musk. We Just Received This Shocking Email.

In Slate. Excerpt: But what is most upsetting is that this is all blatantly illegal. The CFPB was created by Congress in the Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis—the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act to carry out the mandate of […]