In our blog post yesterday about the CFPB’s final rule allowing an alternative online delivery method for annual privacy notices, we commented that the CFPB has made limited progress on its regulatory streamlining initiative launched in December 2011. The CFPB’s streamlining efforts were also the subject of a letter sent to Director Cordray yesterday by Senator Mike Crapo, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Senator Crapo’s letter is intended as a follow up to Director Cordray’s September 2014 appearance before the Committee. The letter seeks information intended to provide “a better understanding of how the CFPB plans to proceed upon a retrospective review and any future evaluation of outdated, unnecessary or unduly burdensome regulations.” In the letter, Senator Crapo asks Director Cordray to provide what current review process the CFPB is undertaking to ensure that its existing regulations, including those for which authority was transferred to the CFPB by Dodd-Frank, are “no longer outdated, unnecessary or unduly burdensome.”

He also asks whether Director Cordray will commit to (1) having the CFPB engage in a retrospective review of its regulations as set forth in Executive Order 13579 (which called for independent agencies to develop and implement a plan for the regular review and amendment of agency regulations), and (2) conducting the retrospective review in the same manner as required for the prudential banking regulators under the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996. The EGRPRA requires that regulations prescribed by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, OCC, FDIC and Fed be reviewed at least once every 10 years to identify outdated, unnecessary or unduly burdensome regulations.