Congress moves to handcuff the CFPB's power to investigate financial misconduct
H.R. 1653 — Civil Investigative Demand Reform Act of 2025 · Filed by Andy Barr (R-KY) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 27, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill restricts the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) power to issue civil investigative demands—subpoena-like orders requiring companies to produce documents and answer questions during investigations. It imposes a 6-year statute of limitations on investigations, requires the CFPB to respond to attorney questions about demand scope within 20 days, allows companies to petition the CFPB to narrow or dismiss demands on grounds of burden or duplication, and makes the CFPB's denial of such petitions subject to judicial review. The bill also protects the confidentiality of companies' petitions challenging demands.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to restrict the CFPB's investigative tools—narrowing demand scope, imposing response deadlines, and creating new procedural defenses for regulated entities. While framed as 'reform,' it systematically reduces the agency's enforcement capacity.
What the text implies
- A 6-year statute of limitations may be insufficient for complex financial schemes (e.g., mortgage fraud, predatory lending) that take years to surface and investigate; investigations initiated near the 6-year mark may be cut short before evidence is fully gathered.
- The 20-day response deadline for the Bureau to answer attorney questions about demand scope, combined with the ability to extend the return date, creates a procedural loop that can delay investigations while companies litigate the scope of demands.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
insurance companies (AIG, PRU, PFG); financial services firms (FBK, FMAO); any regulated entity subject to CFPB investigative demands