Rise Economy v. Vought
In the months since he took over as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Defendant Russell Vought has stated clearly his desire to shutter the agency. This case challenged Acting Director Vought’s latest effort to do so—this time by starving the CFPB of the funds needed to carry out its consumer-protection mission.
The statute that established the CFPB, the Dodd-Frank Act, specifies that the CFPB is funded through the “combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System.” In November 2025, Vought announced that, in his view, the Federal Reserve System has “combined earnings” only when the system is profitable under a novel metric that is defined nowhere in the statute and inconsistent with the overall statutory scheme. Building on that new position, he and the CFPB asserted that the Federal Reserve System did not currently have any “earnings” to transfer to the CFPB and, therefore, that Vought was relieved of the statutory obligation to request funding.
Representing Rise Economy, the Woodstock Institute, and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, we filed suit to challenge the refusal to request funding from the Federal Reserve, as required by statute. The complaint explained that Vought is required by law to determine the amount “reasonably necessary” to carry out the CFPB’s responsibilities so that the Federal Reserve Board can transfer that amount to the CFPB. In addition, we explained, Vought bases his refusal to request funds on a clear misreading of the statute providing funding to the CFPB from the Federal Reserve System’s earnings. The complaint sought a declaration that the defendants’ refusal was unlawful and an order requiring Vought to request from the Federal Reserve the funding reasonably necessary to carry out the CFPB’s duties.
A few days after filing the complaint, we filed a motion for summary judgment and requested that the court rule by the end of March. On March 13, the court granted the motion, holding that the defendants acted arbitrarily, capriciously, and contrary to law by adopting an incorrect interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act’s funding provision and refusing to request funding from the Federal Reserve Board based on that interpretation.