Scott
added
that
he
had
asked
the
administration
to
fire
incumbent
director

Rohit
Chopra,
but
that
the
delay
in
bringing
a
new
director
or
acting
director
aboard
could
come
from
the
Federal
Vacancies
Reform
Act
of
1998,
which
established
procedures
for
appointing
acting
leaders
to
head
up
government
agencies.

One
of
the
law’s
provisions
is
the
order
by
which
an
acting
director
is
appointed.
Once
a
leadership
vacancy
opens,
there
are
three
eligible
classes
of
people
who
can
serve
in
an
acting
director
position.
These
include
the
“first
assistant
to
the
office,”
someone
else
currently
serving
in
a
Senate-confirmed
position,
or
a
senior
officer
or
appointee
of
the
same
agency
as
long
as
they
are
in
a
certain
federal
pay
scale
and
other
conditions
are
met.

There
are
no
such
viable
staffers
or
appointees
that
the

Trump
administration
would
be
able
to
push
forward,
Scott
suggested.
But
he
said
that
answers
should
be
“imminent”
and
“public,”
and
that
he
and
other
administration
allies
“will
be
happy,”
according
to
the
report.

Scott
also
said
that
he
is
looking
forward
to
taking
a
broader
view
of
the
CFPB’s
funding
structure
and
identifying
any
functions
already
being
done
by
other
federal
agencies
as
targets
of
potential
cuts
inside
the
bureau
itself.

Chopra
and
the
CFPB
have
been
regular
targets
of
the
president
and
his
allies.
Republicans
routinely
accuse
the
bureau
of
overstepping
its
enforcement
authority,
and
conservative
interests
have
repeatedly
tried
to
dismantle
the
bureau
through
the
U.S.
court
system.

The


U.S.
Supreme
Court
has
weighed
in
on
the
constitutional
validity
of
the
CFPB
on
multiple
occasions,
but
it
has
never
gone
as
far
as
dismantling
the
agency
altogether.
Most
recently,
the
court

rejected
a
challenge
to
the
bureau’s
funding
structure
in
a
decision
handed
down
last
year.

In
2020,
the
court

cleared
the
way
for
a
sitting
president
to
fire
the
CFPB
director,
who
was
previously
insulated
from
such
executive
action.
President
Joe
Biden
took
advantage
of
this
when
entering
office
in
2021,
forcing
out
then-director

Kathy
Kraninger
before
Chopra
was
eventually

confirmed
to
the
position
in
September
2021.

Chopra

remains
CFPB
director
more
than
a
week
into
the
new
presidential
term.
He
has
said
he
will
respect
a
directive
to
step
down
if
it
comes
from
the
president
but
plans
to
stay
on
the
job
until
that
point.