WASHINGTON— The Trump Administration is asking a federal appeals court for permission to move ahead with a new plan to slash the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s workforce by more than half, according to court filings reported by Bloomberg Law.
Under the revised proposal, the CFPB’s staff would fall to 556 employees from 1,174, replacing an earlier effort that sought to cut as much as 90% of the agency.
According to Bloomberg Law, the filing was made Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, with administration lawyers arguing the downsizing would still allow the Bureau to meet its statutory duties while better aligning with the administration’s priorities. The new proposal would supersede the earlier plan that would have left the agency with only about 200 employees.
Reports indicate the Administration tied the new staffing target in part to the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act, saying the law cut in half the CFPB’s statutory funding cap from the Federal Reserve and supports a smaller headcount. The filing also says the reduced staffing level is consistent with broader White House directives to maximize efficiency across federal agencies.
The latest move comes amid a long-running legal fight over whether the Administration can dramatically shrink the Bureau without effectively dismantling it. GovExec, citing earlier court proceedings, reported the D.C. Circuit had been weighing whether the administration’s prior plan to eliminate nearly the entire workforce unlawfully undermined the CFPB’s congressionally mandated mission, after a lower court had previously paused mass layoffs.
If approved, the new plan would still sharply reduce key CFPB functions. Bloomberg Law reported the bureau’s supervision and enforcement divisions would face especially steep cuts, signaling that even a scaled-back restructuring could significantly weaken the agency’s oversight of banks, nonbanks and consumer-finance firms.