Although a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Tuesday featured testimony from top officials at six different financial regulators, it was an agency not in the room that drew the most attention.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spent a chunk of the hearing trading jabs about the upcoming vote this week on the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (The QRM rule was also discussed. See related story on this website.)
Republicans sought to portray the vote, which they plan to block, as a political stunt, while Democrats accused the GOP of subverting the political process.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., one of the lawmakers being targeted this week in a White House campaign to blame Republicans for obstructing the CFPB nomination, blasted a top Treasury official at the hearing.
"I'm sort of surprised that you all continue to be a part of this political game that's taking place," Corker said in comments to Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin.
Later, Sen. Richard Shelby, who is leading the charge to stymie Cordray's nomination unless the Obama administration agrees to make structural changes to the agency, pressed the issue further. He asked whether the White House is going to pick up the phone to begin talks with Republicans.
"Are you guys seriously interested in negotiating with us?" Shelby asked Wolin.
Wolin responded, "Well, I think, Senator, what we're very interested in is the Senate considering Richard Cordray."
The verbal exchanges, which came during a hearing about the work regulators are doing to implement the Dodd-Frank Act, further hardened the impression that neither side in the CFPB impasse is likely to budge any time soon.
It was a point reinforced by comments Tuesday from President Obama, who once again slammed Republicans for refusing to allow a vote on Cordray.
"Every day we go without a consumer watchdog in place is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or member of our Armed Forces could be tricked into a loan they can't afford — something that happens all the time," Obama said in a campaign speech in Osawatomie, Kan. "Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. I intend to make sure they do, and I will veto any effort to delay, defund, or dismantle the new rules we put in place."
