Reuters is reporting that Stuart Levenbach has been nominated to serve as the next Director of the CFPB.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Levenbach appears to have no experience in consumer protection or consumer finance whatsoever. According to a February 2025 release announcing his appointment to a position at OMB:
Prior to OMB, Dr. Stuart Levenbach was the Director for Government Affairs and Public Policy for the Americas region at the energy technology company, Baker Hughes. In the first Trump Administration, he served as a Senior Advisor in both the National Economic Council and the Council on Environmental Quality and also as the Chief of Staff for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Stuart previously worked at OMB for 10 years as both a Program Examiner in the Resource Management Office Commerce Branch and a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Natural Resources and Environment Branch. He was a volunteer forester in the U.S. Peace Corps and holds a Ph.D. in marine ecology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In a statement, Senator Warren said that the appointment “looks like nothing more than a front for Russ Vought to stay on as Acting Director indefinitely as he tries to illegally close down the agency,” referencing the provision of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act that extends the time for an acting appointee may serve when a nomination is pending.
