President Biden’s nominees for SEC Chairman and Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finally have hearing dates.
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has announced that it will meet remotely on March 2 at 10:00 a.m. ET to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Gary Gensler to be chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gensler currently serves as a Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he conducts research and teaches on blockchain technology, digital currencies, financial technology and public policy. Gensler also was chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 2009 to 2014, where he led reforms of the $400 trillion swap trading market, mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Should Gensler be confirmed by the Senate, he would serve out the remainder of former Chairman Jay Clayton’s term, which expires June 5, 2021, and be reappointed to a new term expiring June 5, 2026.
Commissioner Allison Herren Lee is currently serving as Acting Chair of the agency. She replaced Commissioner Elad Roisman, who had been named Acting Chair by President Trump.
The committee also on March 2 will consider the nomination of Rohit Chopra to be Director of the CFPB for a term of five years. Chopra has served as a Federal Trade Commissioner since May 2018.
After the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, Chopra joined the Treasury Department to launch the CFPB, where he then served as Assistant Director, overseeing the agency’s student loan agenda and efforts to address the student loan financing market, according to his bio. If confirmed, Chopra likely would bring a more aggressive approach to consumer protection enforcement and rulemaking.
Treasury Deputy Secretary Hearing
The Senate Finance Committee held a nomination hearing Feb. 23 on Adewale Adeyemo to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. While much of the hearing focused on efforts to help the economy get through the pandemic, general tax policies and combating terrorism financing, Adeyemo had one exchange with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) on multiemployer plan funding issues.
With Stabenow saying the time to act on the multiemployer funding crisis is now, Adeyemo acknowledged the importance of addressing the issue and pledged to work with Congress in enacting reforms, noting that President Biden had supported similar legislation to that of the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act currently pending in the House of Representatives.
