American Banker quoted Dorsey & Whitney partner Jenny Lee in an article reporting on the legal community’s response to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest semiannual report to Congress. In the report, CFPB director Mick Mulvaney called for four changes to the Dodd-Frank Act that would significantly affect the operation of the Bureau. Specifically, Mulvaney proposed that the CFPB be funded through congressional appropriations; that its major regulations be subject to congressional review; that CFPB leadership answer to the president; and that a dedicated inspector general be created for the Bureau.

Observers were mixed on the merits of these proposals, and whether Congress was likely to adopt any of the report’s recommendations. But some commentators also viewed the report as offering a hint at the CFPB’s policy priorities, and where Director Mulvaney is likely to focus the Bureau’s energies going forward. For instance, Dorsey partner Jenny Lee, who was formerly an enforcement attorney at the Bureau, noted that the report’s focus on “credit invisibles” (consumers who have little or no access to credit) and their overlap with users of payday and installment loans, suggests that the Bureau will look to facilitate access to credit: “This to me is a harbinger for future regulation of products and services for consumers without access to credit or consumers with subprime or deep subprime credit histories.”