Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner pushed back Tuesday against lawmakers questioning the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau role in negotiating a settlement with mortgage servicing firms whose shoddy practices and flawed foreclosure paperwork came to light last fall. Republicans on Capitol Hill have said that the CFPB should not participate in the talks because it has no permanent director and because it won't have regulatory authority until it opens in July. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.)

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially opened for business Thursday during rancorous political debate over the structure of the agency and who should lead it. The House approved a bill Thursday that would strengthen the veto power of the Financial Stability Oversight Council over the bureau's decisions. It would also install a five-member commission rather than a single director to head the agency and delay transfer of powers to the new agency. The bill passed 241 to 173, largely supported by Republicans who have voiced concerns about the scope of the watchdog bureau.

Newly installed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray laid out his agenda Thursday, vowing to press ahead despite political objections and legal questions about his status as a recess appointee. "It's a valid appointment. I'm now the director of the bureau. . . . We now have our full authority to move forward," Cordray said in his first public speech as the agency's director, a day after President Obama used a recess appointment to bypass Republicans who had blocked Cordray's confirmation in the Senate.

In a largely symbolic vote along party lines, the Senate banking committee on Thursday approved former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to lead the new federal consumer watchdog agency even as Republicans reiterated their pledge to block him on the floor. Cordray's nomination has become a flash point in the larger political battle over how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be structured. The agency was the centerpiece of President Obama's plan to overhaul the nation's financial system, but it cannot employ many of its powers until a director is named.

The White House has enlisted a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general to help break a blockade by Senate Republicans of President Obama's nominee to lead the controversial new federal consumer watchdog agency. The National Association of Attorneys General on Tuesday sent a letter to Senate leaders calling nominee Richard Cord­ray "brilliant and balanced. " Cordray was an attorney general in Ohio known for his aggressive pursuit of foreclosure fraud before joining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

MF Global , the commodities brokerage that plunged into bankruptcy while headed by a prominent Democrat , has become a point of attack for Republicans in the battle over financial regulation. "Unfortunately for the American people, more powers and more tools cannot help when regulators fail to do their jobs," Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said at a hearing Tuesday. Shelby accused a top regulator and Obama appointee of dodging questions, and he needled the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for not being able to track down more than $1 billion of customer funds that he said remained missing 37 days after MF Global's bankruptcy filing.

The White House is considering naming a senior staffer at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to lead the agency as the deadline for its launch draws near, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Raj Date joined the bureau in September as associate director of research, markets and regulations, overseeing its work on key issues such as credit cards and mortgages. He is one of the top lieutenants to Elizabeth Warren , the Harvard law professor appointed by President Obama to set up the agency.

Elizabeth Warren on Thursday made her third trip this year to Capitol Hill to answer questions about her brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which begins work in a week and still has no permanent leader in place. For four hours — twice the allotted time — Warren answered questions as the de facto leader of the agency, accepting gushing praise of her work from Democratic members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and fielding critiques from Republicans about the agency's budget, its salaries and whether it will "kill jobs.

An expansion of workers' rights in the areas of wage and hour and whistleblower protections could mean trouble for Washington area employers who choose to ignore them. More stringent penalties can now be imposed for employers who miscategorize employees as independent contractors. And new provisions in another law provide more protections to individuals who blow the whistle in the workplace. Over the last year, the Labor Department and states have identified more and more instances of employers miscategorizing workers as independent contractors.

The White House has ruled out naming controversial Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to lead the agency that she has spent the past year setting up, according to a person familiar with the matter. President Obama is slated to nominate someone to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau early this week as it prepares to officially open for business Thursday. The administration has considered several candidates since the agency was created last year and recently looked at one of Warren's top deputies , Raj Date, as a possibility.