This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, July 6, 2020. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Supreme Court last week decided CELA v Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or CFPB, the court found that the agency, by

vesting so much power in a single director, violates the separation of powers.

Cato's Diego Zulawaga and Will Yeatman say Congress must revisit the agency's

structure sooner than later.

The CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was meant to be an agency that did not exist within the normal

structure of the federal government.

That is, it's neither a commission nor an executive agency in a

sense that is the director of the CFPB could not be removed except for

uh for cause they did not derive their revenues from Congress so they're not directly accountable to Congress for funding.

And this was meant to be something that allowed the agency to do its job without these meddling branches of government.

So Will, if you wouldn't mind, tell us what the controversies surrounding

CFPB as a constitutional matter have been up to now.

The question before the Supreme Court was whether or not the

CFB structure is unconstitutional. You would mention some of its unique factors

I mean it circumvents the the appropriations process and it's an independent agency and that its leader can

disagree with the president without fear of being fired, it had another unique characteristic.

Almost all independent agencies are multi-member bipartisan

commissions. The CFPB by contrast is one of only four, to be honest,

agencies that has a structure of an independent

agency within one with a single director.

So all that authority instead of being dispersed among five,

...