WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key Democratic lawmakers hope to exploit the rare August return of the House of Representatives to intensify pressure on the White House to nominate Elizabeth Warren as head of the new consumer protection agency.
Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank are trying to drum up more signatures for their draft letter requesting a meeting with President Barack Obama on the matter.
Maloney and Frank are urging Obama to act swiftly to nominate Warren -- who has alienated Wall Street and Republicans in her role as a watchdog of the government's $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial system.
Her allies, which include consumer advocates, top professors and some well-placed lawmakers, say Warren has shown she will cry foul when bank greed trumps consumer rights.
"You have an opportunity to appoint to head this body a true visionary -- not the usual Washington practice of a careerist," the lawmakers wrote in a draft letter that has been circulating in Congress. "You have an opportunity to appoint to this body the single best-qualified choice."
So far, the White House has been coy about who it will pick as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's powerful first chief. The issue has become one of the top guessing games on Wall Street and in Washington.
White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters on Monday that an announcement on the consumer job would not come this week and did not say when the decision would be made.
Currently 16 House members have signed the letter from Maloney and Frank, and its authors hope to gain more this week when the House returns briefly from its August recess to vote on aid for state governments, an aide to Maloney said on Monday.
The letter will likely be sent to the president by the end of the week. A similar letter sent last month was signed by 63 House members.
Warren, a Harvard University law professor, is credited with conceiving the idea for the agency, which was created as part of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul law.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd has raised questions about whether Warren can be confirmed by the Senate and has urged the White House not to nominate someone who does not have the votes.
The new agency will have broad powers to oversee a range of consumer financial businesses, including mortgage lending, payday loans and check cashing businesses. The Treasury Department has already starting assembling the agency.
The banking industry vigorously opposed its creation, as did congressional Republicans, arguing its powers are too sweeping and it could impose onerous regulations that would stifle business.
Opponents of the agency have raised objections to Warren as its head arguing she would be an activist and that she also lacks the needed management experience.
She has strong support from several key Democrats as well as from consumer groups and labor unions.
(Reporting by Dave Clarke, with additional reporting by Caren Bohan; editing by Carol Bishopric)
Copyright 2010 Reuters US Online Report Politics News
