CFPB’s Survival Odds Improve After Supreme Court Hears Challenge

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a good shot of surviving a challenge to the way it’s funded following oral arguments before the US Supreme Court.

Court watchers said justices, including several conservative members of the court, appeared leery of finding that the CFPB’s funding through the Federal Reserve violated the Constitution’s appropriations clause.

The case before the Supreme Court was the CFPB’s appeal of a decision last October from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit holding that the agency’s funding through the Fed gave it “double insulation” from Congress’s appropriations powers and was unconstitutional.

While attorneys ...