Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on Friday released his panel’s contribution to the GOP’s megabill, despite concerns from his own members that several provisions won’t be allowed under Senate rules.
The committee’s text for its “one big beautiful bill” contributions includes zeroing out Consumer Financial Protection Bureau funding from the Federal Reserve, Fed pay scale changes and a rescission of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act’s green housing initiatives. The bill would also sweep unused money from an SEC fund that allows the agency to spend money on technology modernization and eliminate the fund permanently. It would also dissolve the U.S.’s top audit regulator, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and fold it into the SEC.
The panel is required to find $1 billion in cuts over the next 10 years under a budget resolution adopted by both chambers of Congress. House Financial Services’ version released last month was determined by the Congressional Budget Office to decrease deficits by $5.2 billion.
The Senate’s version goes further than the House with steeper cuts to CFPB funding.
The text remains almost identical to proposals the committee laid out in a memo earlier this week. But after GOP committee members met Thursday to discuss the legislation, a number of lawmakers raised questions about whether it can comply with the strict rules governing the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process, which allows only measures that are aimed at changing spending or revenues.
“I’d love to have [CFPB funding] be zeroed out, but I think we all know that that would be a policy issue as much as a budget issue,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a senior member of the Banking Committee, said Thursday. “While we’d like to see that happen, we understand the parliamentarian may have a disagreement on that.”
Jasper Goodman contributed to this report.
