Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray is under fire from Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee who said he did not follow rulemaking procedures related to the auto lending market.
An investigative report released this week states that Cordray did not heed CFPB attorneys who advised him to publish a list of institutions that would be subject to the proposed rule and to re-open the public comment period. Cordray, according to the report, issued the final rule without reopening the comment period or the recommended disclosures despite warnings of possible legal ramifications.
“Fuzzy logic and false comparisons are unfortunately prevalent in the CFPB’s auto-lending actions,” the report said. “In every aspect of the CFPB’s auto-lending actions, the CFPB’s lack of rigor leads to unsupported and unreliable conclusions.”
The report also said that CFPB’s use of the “disparate impact” legal theory in enforcement actions would not survive judicial scrutiny.
This is the third report committee Republicans have filed over the last 14 months about the CFPB’s efforts to regulate auto lenders.
“Once again we see the CFPB is a dangerously out-of-control, unconstitutional and unaccountable bureaucracy.” Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) said. “It is a case study in the overreach and pathologies of the regulatory state run amok. The Bureau routinely abuses and exceeds its authority, robs consumers of their economic freedoms, increases consumer costs and often attempts to hide information from the public.”