At a hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s semiannual report to Congress, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott used his opening remarks to argue for a narrower CFPB focused on its statutory mandate, clear rules and consumer access to affordable financial products. He said consumer protection should be grounded in competition, choice and lower costs rather than what he described as heavy-handed regulation. Scott criticized Biden-era CFPB policies as regulatory overreach that increased compliance costs and reduced credit availability, services and product choice for families and small businesses. He pointed in particular to the Bureau’s attempted overdraft rule, which he characterized as a form of price control that would have curtailed access to the product, and said many prior CFPB policies had since been struck down in court, overturned by Congress or rescinded. He also welcomed Congress’s reduction of the CFPB’s statutory funding cap and praised Acting Director Russ Vought for reining in the agency, revising rulemakings, modernizing supervision and operating within a tighter budget. Scott also called for an "honest conversation" about the CFPB’s structure, arguing that the single-director model concentrates too much power and should be reformed to reduce partisanship, increase accountability and provide longer-term stability for the Bureau.

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