09.17.10

Durbin Statement on the Appointment of Elizabeth Warren as Special Advisor for the Creation of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement today after President Obama named Elizabeth Warren as Assistant to the President and Special Adviser to the Treasury Secretary tasked with overseeing the launch of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

 

Durbin authored the original bill to create an agency charged with protecting consumers form the tricks and traps of Wall Street. That bill was included as part of the Wall Street reform bill, signed into law earlier this year:

 

“Professor Elizabeth Warren first proposed the creation of an independent financial regulator to look out for consumers 3 years ago, in 2007. In 2008, she helped me draft a bill based on her idea. Last summer, when the Obama administration released its plan for reforming Wall Street, our idea was rechristened as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.”

 

It is now officially called the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, and it is the law of the land. Whatever the name, Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School, more than any person in this country, was the driving force behind its creation.

 

For the past 3 years, she has advocated tirelessly for the creation of this agency whose purpose is to empower consumers to will give consumers the information they need to make the right choices for their families and businesses.

 

Throughout her work, a common theme has emerged: Both government and the banking industry should work for the American people and not the other way around. Elizabeth Warren is the right person to head the creation of this new bureau.

 

Professor Warren will bring to the bureau the values, a big-picture vision and nuts-and-bolts knowledge. She is the right person for one of the most important jobs in the country.”