The drumbeat for Warren continues:

Consumer advocates, labor unions, liberal groups, scores of Democratic lawmakers, even the National Organization for Women, have urged President Obama to nominate Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

On Wednesday, Warren got a little love from the GOP side of the aisle, if not an outright endorsement for the job.

The two Republican appointees to the Congressional Oversight Panel, the group chaired by Warren that oversees the government's $700 billion bank bailout program, issued a statement saying that while they disagreed with many of Warren's views and opposed the creation of the consumer watchdog, they had found their dealings with her "to be collegial and professional."

The pair praised Warren for conducting exhaustive investigations into the federal government's rescue of firms such as American International Group and GMAC, even when those reviews produced results that didn't always shine a glowing light on the Treasury Department.

"It is important to note that the panel has been critical of policies and decisions implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike," wrote University of Kentucky economics Professor Kenneth Troske and J. Mark McWatters, a Dallas lawyer and certified public accountant, who serve on the five-member panel. "There is great virtue in that because, while it is easy to question the decisions made by members of the other political party, it takes courage to publicly question the decisions made by members of your own party."

They added, "We often debate a wide variety of issues with Professor Warren and have found her quite willing to modify her views if presented with well-reasoned, cogent arguments."

It's up to the White House whether to appoint an industry shill or a watchdog like Elizabeth Warren.

Washington insider publication The Hill reports that the White House is sending signals of support for Elizabeth Warren and that she is confirmable. The Hill:

The White House on Monday gave the strongest signal yet that it may pick Elizabeth Warren to head a new consumer bureau created by the Wall Street reform bill.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday said Warren is “very confirmable” for a position in charge of the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).


Gibbs dismissed criticism that Warren — the chairwoman of a congressional panel overseeing the 2008 Wall Street bailout — is not well-qualified to run the bureau, which was created by the Wall Street overhaul bill President Obama signed last week.

“I think Elizabeth Warren is a terrific candidate,” Gibbs said at his daily press briefing. “And I think she’s very confirmable for this job.”

Our pressure is working:

The White House is under heavy pressure from the left to nominate Warren. Liberal activists and a number of Democrats in Congress believe putting her in charge of the new office would give it real authority in fighting excesses and abuses in the financial services industry. 


Keep it up. We need a watchdog, not a shill heading up the CFPA.

A simple case for the CFPA:

So long as Congress keeps allowing institutions to shop around for the regulator that regulates least -- rather than applying across-the-board rules for each product type regardless of who issues it -- there will be no agency that provides real accountability over the consumer practices of the big banks. The agencies that do have consumer protection authority will continue to chip away at rules in order to attract institutions to regulate and preserve the fees that come with them.

That is why a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency is crucial. We need an agency that sees consumers, not banks, as its constituents. It also needs enough power to prevent financial institutions from leaving its jurisdiction in search of fairer regulatory pastures.

And, guess who is trying to water down real consumer protections and carry water for the banks?

The amendments proposed by Senate Republicans would fail to accomplish these goals. The details have varied from bill to bill, but the ideas remain the same.

The GOP wants to put the agency under the thumb of existing regulators who have already shown how seriously they take consumer protection. And the Republicans want to dilute the agency’s mission to protect consumers with an obligation not to interfere with bank “safety and soundness,” a phrase that has been manipulated by Wall Street and its allies to exclude meaningful reform.

Fortunately, the Senate has rejected these proposals so far. But the GOP and Wall Street lobbyists will keep trying. Senate Democrats must ensure that good sense prevails.

If the Republicans successfully dilute the power of the consumer financial protection body in this way, we will end up with more of what we have always had: regulators who lack either the appetite or the authority for reining in the risky lending practices that got us into the current financial crisis.

The Republicans are standing with Wall Street and the banksters. Is that where you stand?

It's happening. The teeth are being slowly pulled out of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The LA Times explains:

The move this week to downgrade a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency to lure bipartisan support instead appears to be undermining the Obama administration's effort to overhaul the nation's regulation of the entire industry.

The overhaul, aimed at preventing a repeat of the economic meltdown that helped send the nation and world markets into a deep recession, now might be moving closer to the junk heap of congressional bills than to a significant new law.

Creating a powerful and independent consumer agency, which is strongly opposed by the financial industry and Republicans, has been the major roadblock in drafting a bill that could pass in the Senate. Desperate to surmount that hurdle as this year's legislative clock winds down, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) floated the idea this week of putting the new agency in the Federal Reserve.

Although the move would gain some Republican support, it has led to howls of protests from many Democrats and consumer advocates that threaten to derail any compromise. And for good reason.

America is suffering from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We let the banksters call the shots and they did - to the tune of record profits for them and a lack of jobs and opportunity for us. Now, they're trying to strip the teeth out of an organization that will protect us from their excesses. The LA Times continues:

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), another supporter, said Wednesday that many House Democrats were unlikely to agree to give the Fed more consumer authority.

"It's somewhere between bad and terrible," Sherman said of the proposal. "For a number of my colleagues . . . that might just kill it."

Dodd's proposal might not even get through his own committee, potentially adding further delay in a mid-term election year in which major legislation is unlikely to get through Congress if not finished by the summer.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he and some colleagues on the Banking Committee would try to amend the legislation to add a stand-alone consumer agency outside the Fed or any other banking regulatory body.

"There's quite a bit of disappointment with the Fed," Reed said Wednesday. "I think the best approach is an independent entity."

The banksters and their obstructionist friends are at it again. It's time for us to pressure our Senators to look out for Main Street, not Wall Street.

On Thursday, dozens of financial reform advocacy groups sent a letter to Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, thanking him for championing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) and urged the Senator not to bow to Wall Street's pressure and water down reform. The letter reads:

The undersigned consumer, civil rights, labor and community organizations would like to thank you for your strong efforts to enact an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Existing bank regulators utterly failed to protect consumers from abusive lending practices in the marketplace because they were not independent of the lenders they regulated and because they subordinated consumer protection concerns to a dangerously shortsighted focus on the near-term profitability of these institutions. We strongly support the CFPA because it will transform this failed regulatory approach by creating an independent agency focused on protecting consumers from deceptive, unfair or discriminatory financial practices. Correspondingly, we will oppose any CFPA proposal that undermines the ability of the agency to make and implement independent decisions about the needs of consumers, such as placing the agency within a new prudential regulator. In fact, putting the CFPA under the OCC or a new, more consolidated national bank regulator would be worse for consumers than the existing regulatory system.

It is dismaying that some are proposing to give the same prudential regulators whose failures harmed millions of American families and brought our economy to the brink of collapse even more power to make decisions about consumer protection. The OCC, for example, not only failed to stop widespread mortgage and credit card lending abuses by banks it regulated, it actually opposed consumer protection measures to curb these abuses. In August of 2008, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan wrote the Federal Reserve Board to propose significantly weakening core elements of a proposed rule to address unfair and deceptive credit card lending practices. Dugan said that the first reason he wanted to eviscerate these provisions was because they "raise safety and soundness concerns." Even the Federal Reserve Board rejected the OCC’s anti-consumer views and finalized a rule that Congress then improved when it passed the Credit CARD Act.

It would be equally impossible to assure the necessary degree of independence for a CFPA if its rules were effectively subject to veto by a political appointee such as the Secretary of the Treasury, at the behest of a banking regulator. The models for “independent” agencies within the Treasury – the OCC and the OTS – have statutory guarantees of autonomy from the Secretary in rule-making and enforcement, in addition to other attributes necessary for independence, such as independent funding.

We can think of no other circumstance in which an agency charged with protecting the American public can have its actions vetoed because of a challenge by another agency focused on the priorities or profitability of a regulated industry. Though the auto industry is important to the American economy, we do not let the Commerce Department attempt to override NHTSA's auto safety rules or vehicle emissions standards. We would not give another agency the legal authority to get a FAA airline safety rule or EPA clean water regulation vetoed because of the impact on industry. We do not let the Small Business Administration trigger a legal process to OSHA's worker safety rules because they might eat into business profitability.

Given the very poor consumer protection track record and lack of independence from the institutions it regulates, neither the OCC nor its successor should have the ability to oversee or, in effect, veto decisions by a CFPA. It should also be prevented from trying to use phony claims regarding "safety and soundness" to slow or stop consumer protection measures.

The evidence is clear that strong consumer protection measures will also protect the long-term stability of financial institutions, even if these measures impinge on short-term profitability. For example, if the OCC and other banking agencies had paid more attention to the impact of abusive subprime mortgage loans on consumers, it would have better protected the solidity of the institutions it regulated as well. It is no longer appropriate to allow prudential regulators to narrowly (and improperly) focus on the short term profitability of the institutions they regulate by rejecting measures that are in the best interest of consumers.

Our organizations strongly urge you to reject all proposals to allow prudential regulators to oversee or veto legitimate consumer protection decisions by an independent regulatory agency. Once again, we commend you for your strong support of the CFPA and look forward to working with you to achieve this crucial goal.

The letter was signed by a number of advocacy organizations calling for responsible reform including Americans for Financial Reform, AFL-CIO, California Reinvestment Coalition, Center for Responsible Lending, Ctw Investment Group, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Union, Consumer Watchdog, Demos, Empire Justice, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, National Consumer League, National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low income clients), National Fair Housing Alliance, National People's Action, New Jersey Citizen Action, Public Citizen, Sargent Shriver Center on Poverty Law, SEIU, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, U.S. PIRG and the Western States Center.