Last month, Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, released a summary of “The Financial CHOICE Act,” a bill to replace the Dodd-Frank Act. The summary indicated that the bill would include a series of CFPB reforms, including a change in the CFPB’s name to the “Consumer Financial Opportunity Commission,” replacement of the current single director with a bipartisan, five-member commission, funding of the commission through the appropriations process, repeal of the CFPB’s authority to prohibit consumer financial services or products it deems “abusive” and prohibit or impose conditions or limitations on the use of arbitration agreements.
The House Financial Services Committee has now released a “discussion draft” of the bill’s text. The sections of the bill dealing with the CFPB are found at pages 78 to 126 in Title III, entitled “Empowering Americans to Achieve Financial Independence.” The bill includes various provisions not described in the summary, such as a provision requiring the commission to establish a procedure for issuing written advisory opinions.