Melvin Watt: “Let me say at the outset that I was a strong supporter in our committee for the creation of the Consumer Financial…”

“Let me say at the outset that I was a strong supporter in our committee for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and remained a strong supporter of the bureau and its mission. The reason I did that was because all of these regulators had within their authority a consumer protection initiative. Unfortunately, that consumer protection obligation was subordinate to other obligations that each of the regulators had. So when we started talking about this, I kept saying to them, look, we need a consumer regulator that has as much authority as and the least cumbersomeness of any of the other regulators. So if you're going to create a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, don't give the other regulators authority to reverse them unless you give the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the authority to reverse the other regulators. Now, if you think that's fair, do it both ways. This is the only agency that ended up with the other regulators, the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC, having the authority to reverse them; and we were able to restrict it to things that were in their jurisdiction. If it was a systemic risk that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was creating by promulgating a rule or regulation, then we thought it was fair to have them police what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was doing.…”