The White House late Tuesday nominated a new permanent director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a tactical move that will extend Russell T. Vought’s time as the acting director and help the Trump administration push ahead with efforts to shut down the consumer watchdog agency.
The nominee, Stuart Levenbach, was not expected to actually fill the role.
Mr. Vought, the White House budget office director who has led President Trump’s slash-and-burn reduction of the federal work force, took the reins at the watchdog agency in February, shortly after the president ousted the bureau’s Biden-era leader. Mr. Vought was appointed through the Vacancies Act, which allows Senate-confirmed officials to temporarily take on other senior government posts.
But the act limits how long acting officials can serve, and Mr. Vought — who has no intention of giving up his main job — was weeks away from hitting his deadline.
Nominating a new official to the role stops the clock and allows the temporary official to continue serving. A spokeswoman for the consumer bureau confirmed on Wednesday that Mr. Levenbach’s nomination is merely a procedural placeholder. Mr. Vought will remain in charge, she said.
Created by Congress in the aftermath of the housing crisis to increase oversight of financial companies, the C.F.P.B. has sweeping enforcement and rule-making powers over swathes of Wall Street. Under Democratic presidents, the agency had been an aggressive watchdog; it compelled big banks and other financiers to return nearly $20 billion to customers through refunds and canceled debts.
Mr. Vought halted nearly all of the agency’s work and tried to fire 90 percent of its employees. While court orders have, for now, blocked that purge, Mr. Vought — who has called the bureau a “woke & weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals” — has starved the agency of cash to curb its operations. The bureau said this month that it will run out of money by early next year.
Mr. Levenbach, the White House’s nominee to lead the agency, has a Ph.D. in marine ecology and appears to have no experience in financial regulation. He was chief of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during Mr. Trump’s first term and worked more recently with Mr. Vought as associate director of natural resources at the budget office.
The White House in May withdrew its first nominee for permanent leadership of the agency, Jonathan McKernan, before the Senate brought his nomination to a vote. Mr. McKernan is now the under secretary for domestic finance at the Treasury Department.
Stacy Cowley is a Times business reporter who writes about a broad array of topics related to consumer finance, including student debt, the banking industry and small business.
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