US Supreme Court Takes Case that Could Shutter CFPB

Originally published on February 27, 2023, by Nina Totenberg for NPR.

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up a case that could threaten the existence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and potentially the status of numerous other federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve.

A panel of three Trump appointees on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last fall that the agency's funding is unconstitutional because the CFPB gets its money from the Federal Reserve, which in turn is funded by bank fees.

Although the agency reports regularly to Congress and is routinely audited, the Fifth Circuit ruled that is not enough. The CFPB's money has to be appropriated annually by Congress or the agency, or else everything it does is unconstitutional, the lower courts said.

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