Latest news with #RussellVought
Forbes
a day ago
- Business
- Forbes
Trump Administration Will Rewrite Rule On Access To Consumer Financial Data
Russell Vought, the acting head of the CFPB, has shifted course on the open banking rule. Instead of killing it, he wants to rewrite it.A federal judge on Tuesday granted a last minute motion by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to stay the court battle over the legality of the agency's 'open banking' rule, while it rewrites it in a way that 'aligns with the policy preferences of the new leadership.' The regulations, designed to give consumers greater control over their own financial data, were finalized last October under the Biden Administration, and scheduled to take effect on a staggered basis next year. The Biden-era rule allows customers to access and share financial information connected to their bank accounts, credit cards, payment apps and mobile wallets with authorized third parties (for example, fintechs) without a fee. After the rule was issued, The Bank Policy Institute, the Kentucky Bankers Association and Forcht Bank, immediately sued to block it in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. On May 30th, the CFPB, now run by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, a deregulation hawk, filed a motion urging that the rule be declared illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act. Its filing argued that the rule exceeded the agency's authority under Section 1033 of the 2010 Dodd Franks Act, because that section granted consumers–not third parties like fintechs–a right to their financial data. Meanwhile, the Financial Technology Association (FTA), a DC-based trade group, was granted the right to intervene in the litigation to defend the rule. But yesterday, when the CFPB was due to respond to the FTA's motion for summary judgment in support of the rule, it instead asked for a stay while it rewrites the rule. The CFPB's decision to revisit open banking is a clear shift from its May position. Notably, the banking groups the CFPB previously sided with, opposed the stay motion. Meanwhile, the FTA expressed its support in a public statement and pledged to work alongside the agency in the rulemaking process. In a court filing, it added that it reserved its right to object to any delay in compliance deadlines. Recent developments have turned up the already high heat on the issue. Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank, shocked the fintech industry by sending out notices that it intends to introduce steep fees for sharing consumer data–so steep that they could make a life-or-death difference for some fintechs. Last week, lobbying groups representing fintechs, restaurants, retailers and the crypto industry President Trump has embraced (and profited from), sent a joint letter to him asking his administration to take a position in the court case affirming 'that customers, not big banks, control their financial data.' In the letter, they urged him to help safeguard Americans' 'access to the future of finance' and positioned open banking as an extension of his America-First agenda – and the key to ensuring that the U.S. remains a global financial leader. Many of America's largest banks, who view the open banking regulations as a threat to their business, are fighting hard to retain their market dominance and ward off emerging competition by fintech firms. Fintech companies worry that an industrywide shift led by banks towards tighter control over financial data, in the absence of regulatory clarity, could hurt their businesses and stifle innovation within the sector.
Forbes
a day ago
- Health
- Forbes
Trump Administration Halts NIH From Issuing Any New Research Grants
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), led by Director Russell Vought (C) seen here ... More with U.S. President Donald Trump (L), is reportedly blocking the National Institutes of Health from issuing any new funding to grantees and contractors. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) Things just got even tougher for science and scientists around the country and the countless patients and other people that their research could eventually benefit. For the past several months, many researchers in the U.S. have already had to deal with kind of a 'cancel culture' with their grants from the National Institutes of Health being abruptly held, cut or terminated if certain words, phrases or concepts appeared in them that didn't correspond with what the Trump Administration wanted. And now the Trump Administration is putting an immediate 'pause' on the NIH's ability to issue any new research grants, contracts or training awards to anyone outside the NIH. The OMB Blocks The NIH From Providing New Funding Yep, Angus Chen, Megan Molteni, and Anil Oza just reported for STAT how this directive came out of the White House Office of Management and Budget and was delivered as a four-sentence email to the directors of NIH institutes and centers on Tuesday afternoon. The email referred to a 'footnote' from the OMB regarding funding for the NIH and indicated that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 'has interpreted this footnote' to mean that new funding from the NIH would be prohibited for now but the NIH is 'working to make this limitation short-term and temporary.' That footnote could end up being quite a kick to the rears of grantees, awardees and contractors in universities, medical centers and other research organizations around the country. It looks like any researcher expecting to receive funds from the NIH through either new awards or renewals of current awards may have to wait for it, wait for it, wait until who knows what needs to happen. Neither the OMB nor the NIH have clarified what will happen and what needs to happen to make funding available again. (I am reaching out to contacts at HHS and NIH for further comment.) This situation basically further handcuffs the NIH's ability to use money that Congress already allocated to the NIH to use this fiscal year. It's kind of like of your parents giving you an allowance and then someone else saying, 'Oh you can't use that.' NIH Employees Prohibited From Spending Money On Purchases Or Travel The OMB footnote will do some further kicking to those working within the NIH as well. That is those still working within the NIH. Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, there have been multiple waves of different Rs at the NIH. And these Rs haven't exactly been rest and relaxation. They've been rounds of resignations, retirements and RIFs—meaning reductions in force. The remaining NIH employees will reportedly not be able to spend any more money on purchases or travel until the end of the current government fiscal year, which will be September 30. Unspent NIH Funds Would Return To The U.S. Treasury After September 30 Speaking of the government fiscal year. Being only two months away from its end raises an even bigger concern. If this situation isn't 'short-term' and 'temporary' enough, it could soon become quite permanent. Once September 30 passes, money unspent by the NIH would automatically go back to the U.S. Treasury. So, in two months, researchers might have to sing 'bye-bye-bye' to the funding they thought they would receive. That certanly wouldn't be in sync with any of their staffing and scientific plans. This so-called 'temporary' situation could be a way of cutting NIH funding in a manner that bypasses Congress. This office of Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) has estimated that the funds currently hanging in the balance may total around $15 billion. NIH Funding Halt May Cause Even More Job Loss I've written previously in Forbes about how the cutting and canceling of research grants will cause job loss. Unless we've entered some other world in the multi-verse, that still hold. Many scientists depend on NIH funding to pay their own salaries and fringe benefits as well those of their research staffs. When it's not clear when and if expected funding will arrive, there's only so long researchers can hold on, in the words of Wilson Phillips, before they have to lay off people or even lose their own positions. And once a researcher or research staff member is lost, it can be tough to replace them. It's not as if you are simply looking for something to post something dumb on social media or be featured in the reality TV show 'Cheaters.' The U.S. doesn't have an unlimited supply of those with appropriate scientific talent, skills and drive. It can take a lot of time to find someone with the right stuff to fill a position. You can't simply tell the coaches or managers of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Eagles or Oklahoma City Thunder, 'Yeah, we know that you have been sort of successful. But we won't allow you to pay your players, so you are going to have to cut them. Oh, but don't worry, some day when you do have money, we aren't saying when and how, you can always find new players.' NIH Funding Halt Will Have Widespread Ramifcations On Health And The Economy If you don't do any scientific research and think this NIH funding halt won't affect you, think again. It's not as if the NIH funded researchers out there are spending their days posting random rants on social media. They are working hard, often day and night, on ways to prevent and treat different disease such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and a whole range of different infectious diseases, including those that may cause the 'p' word some day. Who knows how many lives will end being affected by these interruptions, disruptions and stoppages of such work? And no matter how healthy you think you are right now, no matter how much kombucha, eyes of newt or whatever you are consuming right now, you will run into health problems some day. You, your family members and your friends will. Trying to keep as many Americans as healthy as possible shouldn't be a political thing. More Americans being healthy longer would mean more Americans to work and produce for society longer. That should be a win-win situation. Or a win-win-win situation. More legit biomedical and health research as opposed to more let's-just-say-it-happens-woo-woo should help the economy as well. More science-backed stuff would mean more stable and sustainable health products and interventions that can form the basis of more sustainable businesses. Yet, this 'pause' in NIH funding is yet another blow to science, scientific research and all of the above. It should give everyone pause to think about what's really important for this country and whether things are headed in the right direction in U.S. After all, this latest 'temporary' situation with NIH may not end up being temporary at all.
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
Trump Administration Puts New Chokehold on Billions in Health-Research Funding
The Trump administration is blocking all funding that flows to outside health researchers—billions of dollars in funding that would have gone to study diabetes, cancer and more. The pause came in the form of a footnote from the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought's office, in a document that doles out federal funds to the National Institutes of Health. The footnote stipulated that the agency's funding for the remainder of the fiscal year could only go to staff salaries and expenses, not to new grants or certain grants that are up for renewal. Most NIH-funded research is done by outside scientists at labs across the country.
CBS News
4 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
OMB director Russell Vought on "I don't even know what that chapter says" about Project 2025 and the Fed
White House budget official Russell Vought, one of the authors of Project 2025, indicated Sunday that President Trump's focus on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is because the president wants lower interest rates, not because it is one of the suggested targets of an overhaul suggested in the conservative blueprint. "I don't even know what that chapter says," Vought, the Office of Budget and Management director, said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" when talking about Project 2025 and the Federal Reserve. "All I know, in terms of the president, the president has run on an agenda. He's been very clear about that. All that we're doing is- in this administration is running on- is implementing his agenda." Overseen by the conservative thinktank Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 was a massive, multi-prong initiative for how a Republican president can introduce sweeping right-wing policy. Mr. Trump insisted on the campaign trail that he had "nothing to do" with Project 2025, and a 2024 CBS News analysis found that at least 270 of the nearly 700 policy proposals matched either campaign proposals or his first-term agenda. Since he took office, many of his policies have matched ones laid out in Project 2025. Project 2025 lays out an overhaul of the Fed, saying "monetary dysfunction is related in part to the impossibility of fine-tuning the money supply in real time, as well as to the moral hazard inherent in a political system that has demonstrated a history of bailing out private firms when they engage in excess speculation." "To protect the Federal Reserve's independence and to improve monetary policy outcomes, Congress should limit its mandate to the sole objective of stable money." Project 2025 says. Vought is not listed as one of the authors of that chapter, but he was one of the key intellectual drivers of the overall project and its recommendations. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has sharply criticized Powell and has indicated he wants to fire Powell, but Mr. Trump has also said he didn't think it was necessary. The Fed chair can only be fired "for cause," and Mr. Trump has zeroed in on an extensive renovation project to two of the Federal Reserve's buildings under Powell's watch. Vought sent a letter on July 10 to Powell alleging the "ostentatious" office renovation project may be "violating the law." Mr. Trump visited the Fed on Thursday, where he and Powell clashed over the cost of those changes. Federal law gives the Fed the power to make decisions about acquiring and remodeling buildings in Washington to serve as its office spaces. The Fed is self-funded, so taxpayer dollars are not appropriated for their costs. Powell's term is up in 2026, and House Speaker Mike Johnson told CBS News last week that he expects a "rocky road" ahead for Powell. Mr. Trump wants Powell to lower interest rates, but Powell has said the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Mr. Trump's sweeping tariffs, which Powell says could push up inflation. Further, the decision to raise or lower interest rates is not Powell's alone — eight times a year, the Federal Open Market Committee, which has 12 members, votes on monetary policy. Despite the pressure from the Trump administration, the Fed is expected to hold steady on interest rates at its meeting this week. Vought said Sunday that Mr. Trump has been "very clear that all he's asking from the Fed is lower interest rates, because he thinks it's important." "When you look across the globe, and you have countries lowering rates, and yet we don't see that in this country, given all of the positive economic indicators that we're seeing," Vought said. "And then we have fiscal mismanagement at the Fed with regard to this building renovation that I'm sure you will ask me about. Those are the kinds of things that we want to see from the Fed. This is not part of an existential issue with regard to the Federal Reserve."Joe Walsh contributed to this report.
CBS News
4 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Vought won't rule out more rescissions funding cuts before September
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said his office is considering more options to claw back funding approved by Congress and isn't ruling out sending more bills to lawmakers with further cuts before September. Vought confirmed on CBS News' "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" Sunday that "we are looking to do [a] rescissions package" to take back some funding from the Education Department. A rescissions bill is the president's request to rescind funding already appropriated by Congress. Last week, President Trump signed a bill clawing back foreign aid, NPR and PBS funding, becoming the first president in decades to receive approval for such a measure. "We're thrilled that we had the first rescissions package in decades, and we've got the process moving again," Vought said of the $10 billion clawback. Asked to confirm there'd be no rescissions package before September, as Congress attempts to fund the government and head off a shutdown, Vought responded, "Not here to say that. We're looking at all of our options, we will look at it and assess where the Hill is, what are the particular funding opportunities that we have?" Asked about National Institutes of Health funding for research into heart disease and cancer that has yet to be released, Vought replied, "We're going through the same process with the NIH that we did with the education." He alleged NIH had wasted funds, claiming "$2 million for injecting dogs with cocaine that the NIH spent money on, $75,000 for Harvard to study blowing lizards off of trees with leaf blowers." He vowed to go "line by line to make sure the NIH is funded properly" and said funding would be released "when we are done with that review." Vought's use of rescissions measures to amend government spending is seen by Democrats and some Republicans as a backdoor method of infringing on Congress' constitutional power of the purse. "Rescissions is just a Washington name for double cross," Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, also on "Face the Nation," said after Vought's interview on the program. "They support one thing one day — the president even signs off — and then they come back and say they change their mind." But the OMB director argued, "We have the ability and the executive tools to fund less than what Congress appropriated" under the Impoundment Control Act, which enables the president to delay spending funds appropriated by Congress, and he didn't rule out a legal battle over the executive branch's authority to revise lawmakers' spending downward, if it "could find waste" by an agency. Vought has also caused GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune some headaches with a comment he made Thursday suggesting the appropriations process must be "less bipartisan." But this put Thune in a bind as he oversees negotiations to avoid a government shutdown in October, since Republicans hold a slim majority of 53 - 47 in the Senate, and most legislation must reach a 60-vote threshold. "It's going to take 60 to fund the government," Thune said in response to Vought's remark, and he added, "we plan to move [appropriations] bills that will have cooperation from the Democrats." Van Hollen said it was ironic that Vought is "calling for these deep cuts to education, NIH, when he has asked for an increase for his OMB budget." And referring to reduction-in-force — or RIF — staff cuts the administration wants across the government, Van Hollen added, "He asked for a 13% increase for his OMB budget. He's asked for more people to join the OMB staff while he's talking about RIF-ing people at other departments." The Maryland senator said that Democratic senators, as they negotiate funding government operations, are "asking for four Republican senators just to publicly declare that when they say they're gonna fund the Veterans Affairs Department, that they actually mean it."
