Comments on a “request for information” (RFI) about “Adopted Regulations and New Rulemaking Authorities” by the federal consumer financial protection agency totaled 134 as of the deadline Tuesday at midnight, according to the website that tallies the results.
The RFI was issued by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP, formerly known as the CFPB) March 14 for a 90-day comment period. The request was one of 12 issued by the agency in the effort by its acting director, Mick Mulvaney, to elicit “evidence” on how the agency is doing its job. It was the eighth in the series to be issued.
To date, according to the tallies of letters reported on Regulations.gov (a web-based application by the federal government supporting its rulemaking process), more than 87,000 comments have been received on all 12 of the RFIs issued. More than 99% of comments received have been on the first eight RFIs (and three of those accounted for 98.8% of the comments received).
The 134 comments received on the “Adopted Regulations and New Rulemaking Authorities” account for 0.15% of all the comments received so far.
(Note: Regulations.gov has recently revised its comments totals on the RFIs, which reduced the numbers. As of midnight Tuesday, the website reported a total of 87,364 comments received on all 12 RFIs issued by the agency under Mulvaney’s “call for evidence.” A week ago, the agency reported 89,052 comments received – a reduction of 1,688 comments. Most of that revision came from the comments to the first RFI on “Civil Investigative Demands,” which the website now tallies at 8,021 comments received, down about 17% from a week ago. Other RFIs have added handfuls of additional comments.)
The most comments received on the 12 RFIs are: 55,049 on “Supervision Programs” of the BCFP (comments closed May 21); 23,236 on “Public Reporting Practices of Consumer Complaint Information” at the agency (comments closed June 4); and 8,021 on “Civil Investigative Demands” (comments closed April 26).
The RFI which just closed for comments on “adopted rulemakings” sought views on whether the agency should amend any adopted rules (generally, those not inherited from other agencies) issued since the agency’s creation. The bureau also asked if it should issue new rules under new rulemaking authority provided for by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank).
However, in its RFI, the agency made clear it was not looking for feedback on its 2015 rule under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) – nor on that rule’s subsequent amendments – or its 2017 rule entitled “Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans,” because “the Bureau has previously announced that it intends to engage in rulemaking processes to reconsider those rules.”
The BCFP also made clear that this RFI differed from one previously issued on the agency’s rulemaking authority (which generated 152 comments and closed June 7). The agency also pointed out it was not interested in comments (at least for this RFI) on pending rules.