Republicans Say New Consumer Bureau Too Powerful

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Republicans are telling the Obama administration official who is assembling a new federal consumer protection agency that it will have too much unchecked power.

West Virginia Republican Rep. Shelly Moore Capito says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will have little accountability to Congress. And House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus says the agency will have wide leeway to decide what it will do.

But at a hearing of the Financial Services panel, Elizabeth Warren – the White House official putting the agency together – defended it as a needed voice for consumers.

The new agency will go into business in July. It was created by last year’s financial markets overhaul law.