mr. cordray. is we don't want to drive the small marginal consumer underground where there is no regulation, because that's what we had before. i believe that goes right to the thrust of our question. senator shelby: how do we do this without overregulating this and how do we have access to some type of credit? because there will be credit. the question is will it be legal or illegal? now we can have our -- senator cotton coming up. we can have that ivy league debate that you referred to. senator cotton. senator cotton: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, director, for appearing before us. i want to return to a topic that senator corker touched upon affordable housing. since this and h.u.d. data indicates there may not be a single county in this country that currently has affordable housing, this is particularly acute in the kind of rural state that i represent or rural county where i live. there are not a lot of new single family homes being built. there's not a large stock of multifamily rental

mr. chairman. and thank you, director cordray, for your testimony. i want to thank you in particular for your leadership of finally having a watchdog fighting for consumers and fairness in financial transactions. in your testimony, you note that the bureau enforcement activities resulted in more than $10.1 billion in relief for 17 million consumers s. it my understanding this is specific funds that come from addressing predatory practices that has been returned to 17 million families across america? >> yeah. it takes different forms. some of it is direct restitution. some of it is uncompensated victims that get compensated out of their civil penalty fund. some of it is say, mortgage relief. some is debt that they otherwise would be required to pay and might be subject to further costs and court prooedings that is forgiven -- proceedings that is forgiven and wiped from the books. yes, it's meaningful relief for american consumers. and the other point that senator warren has made to me that's worth making which is every time we correct practices the sa

mr. cordray. like a lot of members and a lot of citizens, i am really concerned about the vast amounts of data that cfpb collects on all citizens related to financial transactions. .. allow any citizen to see what personally identifiable information that cfp be has collected at least once a year. would you support that? wwor the mortgage market issues where you wall discuss time to time whether allies have gone too far, whether they've gone far enough. how can we answer questions at that data on the marketplace. that is different from a wind data on what senator vitter does. >> personally identifiable data. >> we have personally identifiable data and consumer response where consumers can this data so we can work on their complaint and family constituents to your office -- >> -- collect personal viable data appeared to >> we. >> you don't collect any of that? >> for example we do not have address, social security number, account number. we are interested in the pattern of what goes on in the market

mr. richard cordray. like a lot of members in this and i am really concerned about the vast amounts of data that is collected on all citizens. and this includes being related to financial transactions. i have not been able to allow any citizen to see what personal data at the cfpb has collected on them once a year. would you support that concept. >> in general, our approach to this issue is that we are not having instant data where we can at all avoid it because it only causes problems for us as an agency in our work. and the data we are collecting and you all ask us from time to time whether laws have gone too far and that is different from the morning data on what the senator does and we have some personally identifiable data in two respects where they give us the status of a can work on the complaint the same way that constituents go to your office as well. >> we have no reason to do that. >> you don't need to collect any of that remapped. >> no, for example the credit our data, we do not have names an

mr. cordray. like a lot of members and a lot of citizens, i am really concerned about the vast amounts of data that cfpb collects on all citizens related to financial transactions. .. allow any citizen to see what personally identifiable information that cfp be has collected at least once a year. would you support that? wwor

mr. cordray thanks for being here. in our office we talk a little bit about qm and i know we were all working on this issue way back when in the bad old days when so much was happening. we were often turned about a 5% growth share if you remember that is where everybody's focus was and trying to figure out a way to get that right. one of the things we looked at in legislation is dealing with qualified mortgages. there seems to be a focus to only deal with it at community banks and smaller institutions. i guess if you look at a qualified mortgage that is held on the portfolio that means the institution is keeping 100% of the risk and i guess i have wondered why we have tried to differentiate if you will between smaller institutions holding qualified mortgages but larger institutions being unable to do so. i know we have talked about it and i want a few might address that and i have one other question. >> we don't have as much time to talk about today i'm happy to talk more about it with you. we are generally trying to f

mr. chairman, i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. director cordray you've said many times that you're accountable to congress. however, you get to determine your budget and how to spend it. neither congress nor the fed can tell you how to allocate taxpayers' money. many members of congress have expressed strong disapproval of your the costly building renovations which include a waterfall and four-story glass staircase, and now stands at more than 3 1/2 times my understanding the original estimate. has this disapproval by people caused you to change your renovation plans in any way? and if so tell us what changes you made if any. >> two answers to that question. the first on the overall issue of accountability and oversight. we are accountable to this congress in numerous ways that are in our statute. the gao does a regular audit of our expenses and expenditures each year, which is not common to federal agencies. we are subject to an independent audit also by our statute. we're subject to reviews by our inspector general which have been vigorous. i'm