Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on Saturday announced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will not take its “next draw of unappropriated funding” and ordered staffers to “cease all supervision and examination activity.”
Vought, who is serving as acting director of the CFPB, said in a post on X he had notified the Federal Reserve of his decision, arguing the funding “is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties.”
“The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off,” Vought said.
He also sent an email instructing staff at the independent government agency to “cease all supervision and examination activity,” “cease all stakeholder engagement,” and to pause all pending investigations, according to NBC News, which first obtained the email.
The email further instructed the agency not to issue any public communications, to pause “enforcement actions,” and not to approve or issue any final rules or guidance. Vought also ordered the agency to suspend enactment dates of final rules issued or published that are not yet effective.
Vought was confirmed as OMB director on Thursday, despite Democrats’ objections to his confirmation because of his ties to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. In his role, Vought will play a key role in cutting federal programs and spending.
His confirmation came after Senate Democrats held an overnight session in protest of Vought because he co-authored Project 2025.
“Confirming the most radical nominee, who has the most extreme agenda, to the most important agency in Washington, triple-header of disaster for hardworking Americans,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in his floor speech Thursday morning. “Again, wrong person, wrong ideas, wrong place to be to put those horrible ideas into effect.”
Vought wrote in the Project 2025 blueprint that OMB “has the only statutory tools in the White House that are powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.” He has been a vocal supporter of the impoundment legal theory, arguing that the executive branch has the authority to spend or freeze federal funds that the administration deems unnecessary, though that power has historically been reserved for Congress.
The budget office issued a memo to implement a freeze on federal grants and loans before the document was rescinded last week amid legal challenges. However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the federal funding freeze was still in effect.