Randal Quarles of the Federal Reserve and Mick Mulvaney of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – two of the nation’s top federal financial institution regulators – will testify before the House Financial Services Committee next month, the House Financial Services Committee said Friday.
Mulvaney, who was named by President Donald Trump to be acting CFPB director in November (following the resignation of Richard Cordray from the position) is scheduled to testify April 11, according to the committee, and will provide testimony on the bureau’s semi-annual report as required by Section 1016 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank).
Mulvaney has survived, to date, legal challenges to the appointment; Cordray named his chief of staff, Leandra English, as deputy director.
When Cordray left, English was positioned to become the director under the Dodd-Frank law, which indicated that the deputy director becomes the director of the agency when the incumbent in that position resigns or leaves office.
However, President Trump named Mulvaney (who is also director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, or OMB) to the position the evening of the day Cordray resigned, citing a 1998 law (the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, or FVRA) which gives the president the power to appoint replacements for federal leadership vacancies.
English sued, claiming her right to the seat. She was rebuffed by a federal court in her bid for a temporary restraining order and then again by the same court on another challenge.
Quarles, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board for supervision (who joined the Fed Board late last year as the first person to officially fill that role), is scheduled to testify April 17, the committee said. He will provide “semi-annual testimony on the efforts, activities, objectives, and plans of the Federal Reserve with respect to the conduct of supervision and regulation of depository institution holding companies and other financial firms supervised by the Federal Reserve,” the committee stated.
Earlier this month, Quarles told a Washington conference that the Federal Reserve is working with other financial regulators to produce a proposed rule to inject more clarity and transparency into the Volcker rule.
Both hearings get underway at 10 a.m., the committee stated.