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From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, today's vote on this Congressional Review 
Act resolution could not be more straightforward: Vote yes if you want 
more Americans to get scammed. Vote no if you don't.
  Vote yes if you want Elon Musk to have a get-out-of-jail-free card 
when he scams people on xMoney. Vote no if you don't.
  Three-quarters of Americans use digital payment platforms like Venmo 
and Cash App, and reports of scams on those sites have skyrocketed.
  So CFPB investigated and then stepped in with a new rule to help 
prevent this fraud. The CFPB's rule also helps protect consumer 
privacy, and it combats deep banking on these platforms.
  Now, ask any American how much they like getting scammed and whether 
they think there should be stronger protections against it. Listen to 
how angry people get over these scams.
  Look, nobody wants to be scammed, and no one wants fewer protections 
against getting scammed. In fact, the only people who want weaker rules 
against scamming are the guys who run the scams, and that may explain 
why Elon Musk is hoping that the Senate kills this new rule today 
because Elon's new xMoney digital payment platform would be subject to 
CFPB review.
  Elon wants to take the cop off the beat. He wants what amounts to a 
``get out of jail free for Elon'' card, and that is what the vote today 
would actually give him.
  Look, I think it is pretty clear what Elon's play is here. He wasn't 
very subtle when he tweeted ``CFPB RIP.'' The next thing you know, his 
DOGE team then locks the CFPB staff out of their own building. That was 
act one.
  Now is act two: He wants Congress to block this CFPB rule.
  Now, what will Elon get out of it if the rule is blocked? Well, he 
will get a clear runway for his payment app without having to worry 
about whether there is a cop on the financial beat who would catch him 
if he rips off customers who use his new app.
  But this is really a three-part play, not just a two part play. Act 
one was closing down the CFPB so that the financial cops were shut out, 
at least for a while. Act two is the part we see now, with Elon rolling 
back a rule that, when cops are back on the beat, a financial cop could 
use that rule to go after Elon if he breaks the law.
  Act three comes next week, when Republicans try to move forward with 
legislation that will clear the decks for Elon to issue xMoney as his 
own stablecoin, without any guardrails to protect consumers, to protect 
national security, or to protect the financial stability of our 
economy.
  Put simply, Republicans are setting the stage for the richest man in 
the world to issue his own currency that competes with the U.S. dollar.
  Act one protected all the scammers. Act two protects the cash app 
scammers, in particular. And act three, as currently drafted, will roll 
out the red carpet for Elon and Jeff and Mark and maybe a few other Big 
Tech billionaires to seize control of our money and payments, which 
underpins the entire economy.
  So the question is, Will Congress go along? Will Congress protect 
Americans from getting cheated out of their money? Or will Congress 
give Elon Musk a get-out-of-jail-free card so he can scam whoever he 
wants to scam and know that the CFPB can't touch him?
  Look, this may feel like just one more vote on a busy day, but 
rewarding Elon Musk and a handful of billionaires will mean real cons 
go forward in this country.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to talk about 
the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in defending 
typical Americans against scams and multinational banks. This Agency's 
entire purpose is standing up for regular people as a watchdog against 
the powerful and the corrupt.
  Donald Trump and Elon Musk are attempting to close the CFPB, and they 
are demonstrating their priorities. They have systematically kneecapped 
every part of the government that can stand in the way of their spree 
of looting the government to make themselves and their wealthy friends 
even wealthier. This unlawful freeze threatens Oregonians' economic 
opportunity and our country's economic stability.
  Donald Trump pledged to the American people to level the playing 
field and lower prices. His actions and the actions of many of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle do the opposite.
  Just yesterday, my office heard from veterans who served our country 
and now go to college in Oregon. These are brave young people who are 
not wealthy. They shared details about how veterans routinely face 
predatory, for-profit, fake colleges that just want to target their 
post-9/11 GI benefits. If not for the work of the CFPB, many young 
veterans would have been robbed of tens of thousands of dollars each in 
earned benefits.
  My constituents shared that they are really worried about what is 
going to happen in terms of our student veterans if Donald Trump and 
Elon Musk succeed in shuttering the CFPB. Either Donald Trump and Elon 
Musk didn't know that the CFPB has an entire office dedicated to 
protecting veterans and servicemembers from bad actors. Or possibly, 
they just didn't care.
  Since the Bureau's start just 13 years ago, it has returned over $21 
billion to

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consumers, and through its oversight, it has prevented billions more in 
losses.
  In a choice between fraudsters and scamsters and those who serve our 
Nation in uniform, Donald Trump and Elon Musk protected the fraudsters 
and the scamsters by illegally sending CFPB staff home and freezing the 
Agency's work.
  Now my Republican colleagues are attempting to repeal the CFPB rule 
that protects consumers from frauds and scams on payment apps like 
Venmo. Under this rule, the CFPB would be allowed to look at the books 
of payment apps to ensure they are following the law.
  This rule doesn't impose new requirements on these services like 
Venmo. This type of supervision is important to stop illegal activity 
before it is too late. In the case of payment apps, this supervision is 
crucial to combat frauds and scams.
  Frauds and scams on payment apps are only getting more common, so why 
are my colleagues pushing to overturn the rule now? Republicans are 
trying to roll back the rule. I am sure it has nothing to do with the 
fact that Elon Musk wants to start a payments app. That is a lot harder 
to do when you have to follow any pesky laws or rules. And anybody who 
has used the site formerly known as Twitter recently knows that Elon 
Musk doesn't seem to care about the proliferation of fraud or scams.
  Trump, Musk, and my colleagues across the aisle seem to be working to 
destroy the CFPB because it enforces consumer protection and data 
privacy laws, which I have been working to strengthen.
  Elon Musk has already trampled into Americans' sensitive data at the 
IRS. It should be clear to all of us by now that Elon Musk, Donald 
Trump, and the rest of this billionaire crowd seem to have no regard 
for the law or for the Constitution.
  Those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and 
a fairer economy really ought to be concerned about what I have just 
described this economic sabotage. And anybody who plays by the rules 
has a right as well to feel betrayed by Trump and Musk's contempt for 
the rule of law.
  I am glad to be here with my colleagues to blow the whistle on Trump 
and the Republicans' dangerous and chaotic agenda and to work with 
Senator Warren, who has led the effort on this issue for so many years.
  I will vote to oppose this resolution. I urge my colleagues to do the 
same.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to this 
resolution disapproving of the CFPB's rule defining larger participants 
of a market for general-use digital consumer payment applications, 
which will make consumers more susceptible to fraud. In November, the 
CFPB published a rule to extend oversight over Big Tech companies that 
offer mobile payments and digital wallets. Companies like Cash App, 
Venmo, Google, and Apple now handle billions of dollars in consumer 
transactions per year. Everyone knows someone who has either been 
defrauded or scammed on one of these applications, and everyone also 
knows how difficult it can be to get your money back, even if your 
savings get wiped out.
  The CFPB took a very sensible approach to update our financial 
regulations to address this problem. The CFPB's rule places big tech 
companies that handle your money under Federal oversight in order to 
make sure they are following the law. If these big tech companies want 
to act like banks, then they should be subject to similar consumer 
protection requirements as banks. Under the CFPB's rule, someone is 
making sure consumers actually get reimbursed when they are victims of 
fraud. It means that fraudsters are having a harder time stealing 
people's savings, and it means greater protection against sophisticated 
scammers that are hacking people's phone and email accounts.
  If this resolution is adopted, there is no going back. It will 
preclude the CFPB from adopting substantially similar consumer 
protections in the future. Big Tech will operate under its own rules, 
and consumers will be vulnerable.
  And it is no coincidence that this CRA vote comes only 1 month after 
Elon Musk announced that he would be starting his own digital payment 
company--what a coincidence. A vote in favor of this resolution is a 
vote to strip Federal oversight of Elon Musk's payment company. It is a 
vote to make it easier for Elon Musk to shirk his obligation to 
reimburse the American people when they are cheated out of their money 
on his platform. Elon Musk wins; the American people lose.
  I hope my Republican colleagues will join us to protect this 
eminently sensible rule, and I urge my colleagues to oppose his 
resolution.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, the Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau is at its core a law enforcement agency. Congress established 
the CFPB 15 years ago to protect Americans from fraud, from getting 
ripped off by banks and credit card companies, financial institutions.
  Today's Republican-led resolution weakens the CFPB's ability to 
protect consumers as part of a broader effort by the administration to 
shut down consumer protections entirely.
  Now let's take a minute to go back in time to the time before the 
CFPB existed, right before the 2008 financial meltdown. Back then, 
abusive fees and misleading disclosures meant that Coloradans paid more 
for mortgages, more for credit cards, and more for student loans. Fly-
by-night lenders made massive profits by targeting vulnerable families 
with excessively high-cost loans, turning credit from a tool for 
opportunity into a tool for scams.
  Financial scammers could all too easily slip through the cracks in 
oversight. There just wasn't enough oversight. In some cases, there was 
no oversight. Our neighbors were getting hit with hidden fees and 
frauds when they took out a mortgage, when they used a credit card, if 
they were just paying for school. There was no cop on the beat.
  The result? By 2008, years of this shady, abusive practice helped 
spark a devastating global financial crisis. Six million households 
lost their homes to foreclosure, and a quarter of our families lost 75 
percent of their wealth. Americans lost faith in our financial system.
  In 2010, Congress created the CFPB to help make sure this could never 
happen again. Congress gave it a simple job: to protect Americans from 
getting ripped off. The Bureau cleaned up mortgage markets, debt 
collection, student loans, and much, much more. It worked to protect 
veterans and servicemembers.
  Fast-forward to today, and the CFPB's results really speak for 
themselves. The Bureau has delivered $20 billion--that is billion 
dollars with a ``b''--back to Americans through its enforcement 
actions. It has brought relief to 200 million Americans and small 
businesses facing scams or abusive practices.
  In Colorado, nearly 67,000 people have sought help from CFPB, 
including more than 6,200 servicemembers. Thousands of those complaints 
led to relief for consumers.
  It really is a remarkable track record--that is, until it was decided 
by Republicans to--well, they want to eliminate many of these 
protections, if not all of them.
  This vote today would unwind protections designed for the modern 
financial system, for the everyday payment apps we all use like Venmo 
or PayPal. It would allow some of the largest financial firms in a 
consumer's life to stay in the shadows, to operate outside of any 
oversight. That is exactly the approach to consumer protection we had 
20 years ago, before the CFPB, before the 2008 financial crisis.
  This is but the latest attempt to leave consumers vulnerable to 
scams. In fact, the Trump administration is trying--I think many people 
believe illegally--to abolish the CFPB entirely. They fired dedicated 
staff who protect consumers, they canceled the lease on the CFPB's 
office, and they literally ordered a total shutdown of the Agency--an 
unprecedented effort to defy Congress.

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  The administration believes that the CFPB doesn't deserve to exist. 
Maybe they think that scammers and fraudsters have finally hung it up 
and have gone to find honest work, but I think the American people know 
better. The administration wants to take our economy back to the time 
before the financial crisis of 2009, with weaker protections and no one 
looking out for consumers. If the Trump administration gets its way, it 
is clear who the winners will be--loan sharks, shady mortgage 
companies, junk-fee merchants. The losers will be the rest of America--
any Coloradan who wants a fair deal on a credit card or a mortgage.
  Bottom line: More money in the pocket of fraudsters, scammers, and 
the unscrupulous; less for the little guy to save.
  I urge my colleagues to stand up for American consumers and vote no 
on this resolution.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The Senator from Connecticut.