Biden has nominated a current member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Rohit Chopra, to work as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency that is Warren’s brain-child and that has for a while now been the target of Republican criticism on grounds of executive overreach and difficult regulatory position.
Under President Trump, CFPB directors have relaxed the agency’s strict way to handle financial institutions, while Democrats have requested a tougher bureau to take on what they say are financial-industry excesses.
Chopra, an ally of Warren, assisted launch the CFPB in 2011 and beforehand served as assistant director of the agency, where he headed fights on student loans. At the FTC, he “pushed for aggressive remedies against lawbreaking companies, especially repeat offenders, and has worked to reverse the FTC’s reliance on no-money, no-fault settlements,” his FTC biography shows.
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A lawsuit was made in 2019 claiming the CFPB’s unconstitutionality, with many House Republicans joining in an amicus brief, in which they claimed that its leadership structure was an “affront to the separation of powers” and that recognizing it “would take a wrecking ball to one of the central pillars of our constitutional architecture.”
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In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that the structure of the CFPB was unconstitutional as it “violates the separation of powers,” yet stopped short of destroying the agency. “The agency may therefore continue to operate, but its director, in light of our decision, must be removable by the president at will,” Chief Justice John Roberts explained in his opinion.
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Biden on Monday further declared that he will be naming Obama-era Wall Street regulator Gary Gensler to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gensler, an 18-year Goldman Sachs veteran who joined the Treasury Department in 1997, was selected by former President Barack Obama to direct the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2008, where he gained a reputation as an aggressive regulator. He helped reform the rules about the $400 trillion swaps market as part of the Obama administration’s overhaul of financial sector guidance in the wake of the 2008 crisis.
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“All of us that were involved at the time, and certainly myself, should have done more to protect the American public through aggressive regulation,” Gensler announced soon before he became chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
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It’s unclear how quickly the Senate will hold votes on Biden’s picks. So far, hearings have been listed for four key officials on Jan. 19: retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin for Defense Secretary, Janet Yellen for the Treasury, Alejandro Mayorkas for Homeland Security, and Antony Blinken for the State Department.
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