WASHINGTON, July 16 – In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, U.S. Public Interest Research Group praised the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s plans to reform the financial regulatory system.
Speaking to a packed hearing, U.S. PIRG’s Consumer Program Director, Ed Mierzwinski, said he strongly endorses the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
"Bankers and their armies of lobbyists are opposing the new consumer agency and defending the status quo,” noted Mierzwinski, who has been advocating on the behalf of consumers for three decades.
“But the real reason that the economy collapsed is because no agency was responsible for protecting consumers so companies sold them risky products,” he added.
U.S. PIRG strongly supports the proposed agency in part because of its underlying principles of “independence, its recognition that federal law should always serve as a floor of protection and not a ceiling, and its shared enforcement with states” in shielding consumers from predatory lending and other fraudulent practices by financial businesses, Mierzwinski said in his testimony.
The other pro-consumer proposals by the Obama administration include new investor protections and limits on executive compensation policies. “But if the administration wants to give the Federal Reserve increased responsibilities as a systemic risk regulator it must democratize it first.” Mierzwinski had a number of other suggestions to improve other parts of parts of the Obama plan as well.
The creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and the other reforms “are necessary to reform our collapsed financial system and inoculate it against further catastrophic events,” Mierzwinski added.
To download Mierzwinski’s complete testimony, click here.
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U.S. PIRG is the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups. State PIRGs are non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organizations.
