AG Nessel Calls on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to Abandon Plan to Decimate Enforcement, Consumer Protection

LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of 23 attorneys general in urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to scale back its plans that would severely reduce staffing, undermine the agency’s statutory obligation to supervise financial institutions, weaken enforcement, and result in less relief and protection for consumers. In the opposition letter (PDF) to CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought, Attorney General Nessel and the coalition explain it is essential that the CFPB – as the only federal agency charged with financial consumer protection as its exclusive mission – maintain a robust supervision program to protect consumers and the financial marketplace nationwide. 

“Michigan families depend on the CFPB to defend them from deceptive financial institutions,” said Attorney General Nessel. “With the Michigan Consumer Protection Act having been gutted by court rulings, the CFPB has been an important line of defense for Michiganders against bad actors. Scaling back the agency doesn’t just reduce staffing. It abandons working families getting ripped off by unscrupulous practices. Michigan residents need the CFPB to have their backs, and I call on the agency to uphold its mission to protect consumers, not predatory corporations.”

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Congress created the CFPB in recognition of the need for a single, effective regulator dedicated to protecting consumers from harm. Since its creation, consumers have received more than $21 billion in relief through the CFPB’s enforcement and supervision work.

Since taking office, however, the Trump administration has unsuccessfully attempted to eliminate nearly all CFPB staff. The CFPB is now attempting to reduce a team of 72 supervision staff in the Office of Supervision Policy and Operations to a single person, dramatically impairing the agency’s ability to supervise covered entities. Under the proposed strategic plan, such staggering workforce reductions would continue.

While the CFPB has worked to protect consumers throughout the nation, that protection is critical to Michiganders. Michigan has the strictest limitations in the country in its own consumer protection statute, often complicating the investigative process and limiting the recourse the Department can seek on behalf of residents and businesses alike. Although Attorney General Nessel has asked the Michigan Supreme Court to reconsider the two previous rulings that hinder the Department’s ability to take action against drug manufacturers and other regulated or licensed entities through a misconstruction of the Michigan Consumer Protection Act, significant legal and practical impediments remain, complicating any efforts the Department may take to fill the void for much of the business conduct the CFPB historically targeted.

Attorney General Nessel and the coalition warn that the CFPB will effectively abdicate several critical statutorily mandated roles entirely, leaving consumers vulnerable to greater harm at a time when 40% of U.S. adults have experienced some sort of financial fraud or scam in the past 12 months. Over the past year alone, the CFPB has abandoned billions of dollars in consumer harm it had previously attempted to recoup.

Attorney General Nessel and the coalition also highlight how the CFPB’s work benefits financial institutions themselves by promoting fair competition, educating industries on compliance, and providing confidential resolutions of legal violations.

In their letter, Attorney General Nessel and the coalition describe how:

• The strategic plan’s proposal to “realign the organization” and “eliminate non-essential roles” will result in a dramatic reduction of the staff needed to perform the agency’s statutory obligations.
• The plan undermines the CFPB’s statutory requirement to supervise financial institutions.
• The plan’s goal of minimizing “duplicative enforcement” and introducing a deregulatory agenda will place more burden on states to enforce consumer protection laws by abandoning the long-standing state and CFPB partnership.
• The CFPB’s 2025 actions, along with several of the plan’s stated goals, have resulted and will continue to result in less relief for consumers, not more.

Joining Attorney General Nessel in sending the letter are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

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