CO M P LI A N C E
A Not-So-Closet Makeover
P
THE NEW THROWBACK CFPB By T R OY GA RRIS, G A RRIS HORN L L P
resident Biden, on February 13, 2021, officially announced the nomination of Rohit Chopra to be Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sending the nomination to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. If confirmed, Chopra would be the third Director of the agency, following Richard Cordray and Kathleen Kraninger. As of this writing, a nomination hearing has not yet been scheduled. However, given that Chopra was confirmed by the Senate in 2018 as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, holds Ivy League credentials, and the Democrats generally control the Senate, TROY GARRIS most observers anticipate that Chopra will be confirmed. Chopra’s roots go back to the early days of the CFPB. He was part of the original implementation team. Once the agency was organized, Chopra worked under Director Richard Cordray as the agency’s first student loan “point man”. In that capacity, Chopra worked on several different student loan issues, including a report indicating that student loan overcharge schemes directly harmed military servicemembers. The agency also put two large post-secondary schools out of business while Chopra worked at the agency. In D.C., however, no one is confirmed until they are confirmed. Meanwhile, the CFPB marches on. Current Acting Director Dave Uejio’s activities and announcements suggest that the agency intends to be forwardly assertive even while awaiting a confirmed Director. In just under a month since Uejio assumed the title of Acting Director, the CFPB has had 13 postings on its blog, four by Uejio himself. And certain items posted during the prior
26 MORTGAGE BANKER | MARCH 2021
