Ann Wagner Takes No Prisoners Grilling Rohit Chopra About His Public Calendar

Aya thank you Mr chairman uh and welcome to uh director Chopra I'd like to follow up on a line of questioning uh that my colleague um Michelle began discussing these cfpb's industry Outreach and specifically your public calendar on February 7 2023 our my colleagues Mr luktemeyer Mr Barr and hazinga sent you a letter requesting specific information regarding your calendar and Industry Outreach in your response to their letter dated February 21st of 2023 used to wait stated and I quote like my predecessors I have continued the agency's commitment to transparency through our long-standing policy of publicly posting the calendars of senior leaders director Chopra it appears that your commitment to following this long-standing policy has been absent completely absent this year the cfpb's website states that each month's calendar will appear at least a few weeks after each month has concluded but it's been almost six months 22 weeks since your calendar has been publicly disclosed there's nothing here can you please tell me why your calendar has not been publicly disclosed for half the year I I'm not actually aware that that's the case but if it is the case we will look to make sure that it happens it is faster it is absolutely the case and I'm just reading to you directly from a letter in to Congress in response dated in February 21st ABS so there are the quotes um if it's concerning I will just share though that with respect to Industry Outreach we have I'm not asking about that I just sorry let me I reclaim my time would you say a six-month Hiatus of public disclosure is is your way of of showing commitments to transparency sir well we would want to do that in a fashion that is responsive and I will take a look directly yeah your own website sort of states that um quote due to the time intensive preparation process each month's calendar will appear on this page at least a few weeks after that month has concluded and it's just clearly not true moving on uh the comment period to the cfpb's proposal to adjust the Safe Harbor dollar amount for credit card late fees was just 36 Days and you receive more than 55 000 comments and they were submitted um many were weeks prior to the deadline which was May 3rd the majority of which came from consumers real real consumers and Retail investors but they weren't posted in the comment file until a full month after the deadline closed what was the reason for the delay in posting these comments sir was the bureau overwhelmed by volume or did you intentionally delay the posting of these comments no definitely not when we receive large amounts of comments one of the things that we do have to do manually often is to make sure it does not include account information sometimes people might be trying to file a complaint we do not want it to be a vector of identity theft and I will also just share 36 Days from the time we publish The Proposal there was more than 36 days and I'm happy to get you well I will tell you this then then you should have had more than ample time to begin to post some of those over 55 000 comments out there in real time sir because you don't wait until after to then delay it further and I could I consider that intentional and frankly director Chopra I'm just saying absolutely not we are trying to I am seeing reclaiming my time sir I'm seeing an extremely Troublesome theme here and that's what I'm trying to get to you claim to be for transparency I'm for transparency but the blatant lack of timely public disclosure says otherwise I don't care whether it's your calendar or or you're publishing comments so I'd like to take a serious look at that I will make sure I do believe we are in line or bad better than all our peer agent or most of our periods I'm concerned about what's your responsibility the cfpb's credit card late fee proposal ignores the important role that late fees play in deterring consumers from paying their bills if late fees are capped at such a low amount and the deterrent effect is non-existent more consumers will pay their bill late leading to a higher share of delinquent accounts which will be reported to credit bureaus and result in lower credit scores director Chopra I'm not going to have enough time for you to answer but I'd like it in writing why is the Bureau proceeding with a rule making that has no consumer benefit and would actually result in tremendous harm to Consumers the director can answer for the record and it's again thank you and I

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Length: 5min 10sec (310 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023