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Today, the House Financial Services Committee, led by Chairman French Hill (AR-02), is holding a Full Committee hearing featuring testimony from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Russ Vought on the CFPB’s Semi-Annual Report, the changes underway at the agency, and reforms needed to ensure it remains accountable, transparent, and focused on its consumer protection mission.

Read Chairman Hill's remarks as prepared for delivery:

"Good morning.

"I want to thank Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Russ Vought, for being here with us today.

"Today's hearing gives us an opportunity to review the CFPB’s Semi-Annual Report and examine the significant changes underway at the CFPB under President Trump and Acting Director Vought’s leadership.

"The question we should keep at the forefront of today's conversation is: what can Congress do to ensure the CFPB remains accountable, transparent, and faithful to its mission of consumer protection?

"Since its creation under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB has too often operated as an overreaching regulator.

"Partisan priorities have driven burdensome regulations and duplicative supervision that fail to account for their impact on consumers' access to credit and discourage innovation.

"Rather than acting as a fair and transparent regulator, the CFPB has often allowed ideology to drive its policymaking, resulting in burdensome regulatory overreach.

"Financial institutions, particularly smaller banks and credit unions, have reported increased compliance burdens that make their operations unnecessarily difficult.

"The result was not more protection for consumers, but more paperwork for community banks, fewer choices for working families, and restrictions on innovation in everything from small-dollar credit to digital payments.

"Under President Trump’s leadership, the CFPB has begun to pull back from being an unaccountable super-regulator and toward being a focused agency that focuses on protecting consumers from genuine harm.

"The CFPB has stopped regulating by informal guidance and is back toward a disciplined approach grounded in clear rules.

"It has moved to stop or undo the worst excesses of prior years, including rules and enforcement strategies that punished lawful business models, second-guessed market prices, and tried to micromanage terms and products that consumers use every day.

"Those administrative actions are an important first step – but these alone are not enough.

"A future Director could reverse these actions and this much needed direction  with the stroke of a pen creating wild swings in policy that are bad for consumers, lenders, and our economy.

"That is why this Committee is advancing a comprehensive set of CFPB reforms.

"These legislative reforms establish durable guardrails that outlast any single Director or administration by clarifying the CFPB’s statutory authorities, strengthening due process, restoring transparency, promoting coordinated and risk-based supervision, and preventing regulation by enforcement.

"Congress has a responsibility to create a more durable framework for the CFPB and provide the oversight necessary to ensure it stays true to its mission.

"These reforms are designed to ensure adequate consumer protection while also giving financial institutions and firms the certainty they need to compete, innovate, and expand access to affordable financial products and services.

"I look forward to hearing from Acting Director Vought today about the real-world consequences of the CFPB's past policies, his work to correct these abuses, and his ideas for reforms that will bring clarity and consistency so financial institutions can better serve their customers.

"Because it is competition and innovation, not government mandates, that are the best way to improve access and reduce costs for the American people.

"I yield back."