Mainers to urge members of Congress to protect consumers, CFPB in meetings next week

March 7, 2025

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All next week, Mainers will meet with Maine’s congressional delegation staff and urge members of the delegation to oppose the Trump administration and Republican efforts to undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s work. 

They warn that efforts to undermine the CFPB will leave Mainers exposed to financial fraud and scams and vulnerable to predatory practices. Meetings are planned with staffers from all four members of Maine’s congressional delegation. 

Advocates, volunteers and people directly impacted by unethical financial practices will join hundreds of other consumer advocates and concerned voters from 45 States and the District of Columbia. 

In Maine, the CFPB has worked on more than 9,000 complaints about inaccuracies on their credit reports, harassment by debt collectors, junk fees by their credit card or bank, and other issues. 

Nora Flaherty-Stanford leads consumer protection work at Maine People’s Alliance, one of the groups whose members are taking part in next week’s meetings: 

“Most of us believe we should be able to go about our daily lives without being constantly on guard. We should be able to get medical care without our credit ratings being ruined by medical debt, pay for the things our families need without having our accounts emptied out by excessive bank and credit card fees, and have confidence that our financial system is solid and being looked after by competent adults. The CFPB protects regular people from financial predators – and that’s why Pres. Donald Trump, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, and super-rich banks and credit card companies want to defang it. But Mainers aren’t standing for that, and we’re joining together to let our representatives know how we feel.” 

Created in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB is the only federal financial regulatory agency devoted exclusively to protecting consumers in the financial marketplace. However, Elon Musk and his DOGE team recently targeted this vitally important agency for closure.

Attendees will urge members of Congress to stop efforts to undermine the CFPB, and call on legislators to reject plans to change the way the Bureau is structured and funded. 

At the meetings, constituents will tell their legislators to oppose any measures that might be introduced in Congress that would roll back important consumer protections, including a $5 cap on most big bank overdraft fees, a rule to remove medical debt from credit reports, and measures to ensure fintech payment apps are supervised so they comply with the law and do not facilitate fraud.

Since its launch in 2011, the CFPB has vigorously protected everyday people and their families against frauds, ripoffs, and market failures. This agency cracked down on junk fees, reduced medical debt burdens for 15 million people in the US, and fought lending discrimination. It holds financial institutions accountable when they defraud and cheat people, and it has returned over $21 billion to over 200 million people in the form of restitution or cancelled debts. In recent weeks, these gains for consumers have screeched to a halt as acting CFPB Director Russell Vought has effectively shuttered the CFPB through a stop work order and mass firings of both probationary and long-term staff. 

The Trump Administration has halted several critical CFPB enforcement actions, including lawsuits to hold Capital One accountable for cheating customers out of $2 billion in interest payments on savings accounts, and to stop the SoLo Funds fintech payday loan platform from lending to consumers with triple-digit interest rates disguised as ‘tips’ and ‘donations.’ 

Ahead of the meetings with lawmakers, Maine People’s Alliance signed on to a letter with 300+ organizations demanding that the 119th Congress restore a strong and independent CFPB and vote against any legislative attacks on the agency.

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Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) was founded in Lewiston in 1982 and has grown to be the largest community organization in Maine, and one of the largest in the country. MPA is a powerful grassroots network of more than 32,000 members who work together on issues that include but are not limited to climate change, toxics use reduction, health care access, affordable housing, racial justice, and immigrant rights.

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Contact: Nora Flaherty-Stanford, [email protected], (207) 370-8314