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

director cordray welcome to the committee again. your written testimony will be made part of the record. you can proceed as you wish. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member brown members of the committee. thank you all for the opportunity to testify today about our latest semiannual report to congress. we appreciate your continued oversight and leadership as we work together to strengthen our financial system. and ensure that it serves consumers, responsible businesses in the long-term foundation to the american economy. i would reiterate mr. chairman that we take very seriously the oversight that we get from congress. these hearings are from the senate banking committee which are required by law. it's important oversight for us. we listen carefully for what is said and take it to heart as we go about our work. next week marks five years since the passage of the dodd/frank wall street reform and consumer protection act. as has been noted. and it's four years since the consumer bureau actually opened its doors. as you know, congr

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

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

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

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

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

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 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've 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 required by law to testify in front of this committee,

cfpb director richard cordray testified at the senate banking committee about his agency's work. this is just over two hours. >> the meeting will come to order. today the committee will hear from richard cordray, the director of the bureau of consumer financial protection. the bureau has grown to over 1,450 employees, and has been very active since director cordray's last testimony before this committee. among other things, it has recently increased actions to include the auto finance industry. these actions like others undertaken by the bureau since its formation have not been without controversy. many would say some of them go beyond what congress envisioned in dodd/frank. for instance, the bureau's regulation of auto lending now involves over 30 nonbank lenders, not previously subject to its supervision. this move has been called into question given the specific exemption for auto dealers in dodd/frank. in addition to concerns with recent regulatory actions, issues remain with the bureau's lack of accountability. this has been demonstrated by concerns with the bureau's budgeti

director eror cordray, thank you for attending and we appreciate your testimony and your frankness. meeting is adjourned. >> thank you. >>> on the next washington journal, fawn johnson looks at the highway trust fund which is expected to expire at the end of the mond and what the house and senate plan to do about it. then paul butler talks about his book "let's get free." and then after that, eu ambassador to the united states, david o'sullivan talks about the greek economic crisis and why greek lawmakers approved austerity measures that were overwhelmingly rejected by their country's citizens, plus your phone calls facebook and tweets. >>> when francis fulsome married president grover cleveland, she became a first lady with many firsts. she's first and only first lady to be married in the white house and the youngest woman to serve as first lady. and when she died in 1947, she lived an additional 51 years after leaving the white house. longer than any other first lady. frances cleveland. on c-span's original series first ladies. examining the women who filled the position of first

i asked cordray if he would slow down the dodd frank because we're losing banks. he said we're going to go 100% to take a look at it. that's a bad policy. you stated community banks shouldn't face the same scrutiny. you said that today. i agree. if the fed will reduce regulatory burden -- in 2014 i heard you say i had community bankers in my office just yesterday from what you said i heard today from community bankers asking me what do i do. we say the right thing, but what do we do? they're fearful of things that can happen of what they may not do. they don't know what to do. what would you tell these people? we talk a good game but don't come through. >> we're trying to make sure our supervisory expectations and work carefully with them to know what rules and regulations apply and how and what don't. and to try to shield them from many of the things that larger banks have to -- >> it's very vague. i hope you'll understand. >> time of the gentleman has expired chair now recognizes the gentleman from maine, mr. peloquen. >> everybody wants the same thing. we want

i spoke about the data collection before the confirmation of richard cordray to be the director of the cfpb on july 16, 2013. i was the only senator to speak before this vote, and i repeated something i said during the gast debate of the dodd-frank act. on may 20, 2010, i said, "this bill was supposed to be about regulating wall street. instead, it's creating a google earth of your every financial transaction. that's right. the government will be able to see every detail of your finances. they can look at your transactions from the 50,000-foot perspective or they can look right down to the fining knee details of the time and place where you pulled cash out of an a.t.m. quks "i talked about some of the data that we had at that time. i'm unfortunately going to expand on those comments today because the cfpb continues to collect mass sufficient amounts of data without consent of the consumers. the government accountability office g.a.o., is a nonpartisan, independent agency that investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. they released an extensive report on september

tomorrow consumer financial -- financial protection bureau director rich cordray who i proudly say isrom my state of ohio will testify again in congress. this will mark his 54th appearance by someone -- either him or someone else from the cfpb. as republicans claim the cfpb is unaccountable to congress. hauled in front of congress, one, two three four-plus dozen times, and then they still say he is unaccountable. figure that one out. it's all about the politics. again they are doing wall street's bidding. this past week, two republican commissioners in the securities and exchange commission and the commodities futures trading commission organizations agencies whose job it is to police wall street, to prevent another crisis, these two commissioners, republican commissioners wrote an op-ed denouncing regulation. they wrote one of the greatest potential risks to the financial markets is the work of the regulators themselves. they're not saying regulators should have been tougher on wall street. they're saying these regulators are overreaching, these regulators are not doing what they sho