Amicus Briefs
CFPB v. CFSA
CASE SUMMARY
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operates with an illegitimate funding method, outside of direct Congressional control. The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed an amicus curiae brief joined by The Buckeye Institute and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in the case of CFPB, et al., v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited, et al., urging the Court to overturn CFPB’s funding method as a violation of the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause.
CFPB pays for its operations by directly requisitioning whatever Federal Reserve funds it deems necessary (up to 12% of the Federal Reserve’s total operating expenses), an arrangement Congress permitted when it created the agency through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. However, NCLA argued Congress did not have the right to divest itself of power over CFPB’s budget under the Appropriations Clause in Article I of the Constitution.
In May 2024, a 7-2 Supreme Court majority ruled in CFPB v. CFSA that CFPB’s budgetary arrangement does not violate the Appropriations Clause.