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Under Director Rohit Chopra, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has facilitated a resurgence in consumer relief won through enforcement actions relative to the Trump years, which were marked by lax enforcement (see the chart below from the CFPB). This increase in relief came amidst industry-driven challenges to the agency’s constitutionality. The case stifled some potential action, but the agency’s enforcement actions have rebounded since the Supreme Court rejected the challenges to its existence.   

Under the Biden administration, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) achieved record levels of enforcement. It recovered record sums from imposing penalties, had a high count of enforcement actions, and significant numbers of white collar criminals were disbarred from executive board seats. The SEC has secured these accomplishments through effective litigation, emphatic rulemaking, and rigorous enforcement of the law.

The Department of Labor (DoL) has been prolific in using its rulemaking abilities to protect workers and increase wages while using its investigative and enforcement authority to hold bad corporate actors accountable. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, but highlights major victories in increasing overtime pay, addressing misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and cracking down on widespread illegal use of child labor. 

Lina Khan and the Federal Trade Commission have been the target of endless Wall Street Journal hit pieces and antagonistic lobbying from billionaires hoping to cut short Khan’s tenure at the helm of the consumer protection agency. This is not a coincidence. Under Khan’s leadership, the small agency has punched well above its weight by writing cogent rules  to protect consumers, blocking anticompetitive mergers, and bringing enforcement actions to punish illegal corporate practices.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been an active regulator under the Biden administration, helping shift the balance of power in labor relations to empower workers. The NLRB has utilized both enforcement actions and rulemaking capacity to help workers and unions, much to the chagrin of big business groups. 

A group funded by fracking firms and pipeline companies is ramping up its efforts to cozy up to key Democratic constituencies in service of a pro-polluter agenda, including a bipartisan bill packed with fossil-fuel giveaways that could be considered in Congress in the coming weeks, according to a new report released today by the Revolving Door Project and Public Citizen.

The deeply intertwined crises of climate change, insurance rate hikes and cancellations, and housing injustice are escalating. State insurance regulators cannot tackle these problems on their own, but their role in aggravating or ameliorating them deserves greater scrutiny.

They’ve descended into business model myopia and lost direction as the actual news becomes more and more of an afterthought.

Corporate revolvers are keeping industry giants from facing real accountability.

Schedule F has been embraced by the Trump right (being celebrated by both his transition Chairwoman’s organization as well as enshrined in Project 2025), and now the Heritage Foundation is setting the stage for it.

Climate disasters, what to do about them, and why the Fed needs to step up