Senate confirms Rohit Chopra as next director of CFPB

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate narrowly approved President Biden's pick to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday, giving the bureau a director who is likely to embrace an aggressive “watchdog” role, similar to how the agency operated under former President Obama.

Rohit Chopra's nomination was approved 50-48, with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier having to cast a tie-breaking vote to end debate. Republicans were united in opposition against Chopra.

Before his approval, Chopra held one of the Democrat seats on the Federal Trade Commission, often using his position to publicly advocate for higher penalties and enforcement against companies were found to have committed wrongdoing. A then GOP-controlled Senate unanimously confirmed Chopra to his FTC commissioner job in 2018, a point Democrats made during debates about his nomination when it became clear no Republican would vote to approve him this time.

Chopra, 39, also held several high-ranking positions at the CFPB during the Obama administration as well, including the top job handling student loan issues.

“Chopra has a long history of protecting consumers,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Chopra is the CFPB's third permanent director since the bureau was created by the Dodd-Frank Act, the law passed after the 2008 financial crisis that overhauled the entire banking and financial system. Kathy Kraninger, who was former President Donald Trump's choice to run the bureau, was asked to resign by President Joe Biden on his first day in office.

During the Trump administration, the CFPB drastically scaled back its enforcement actions, both in number and size, and it relegated concerns, such as fair lending, to a much smaller position inside the bureau....