Who will head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

The ink on the newly-signed Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is barely dry, and already folks are fighting over who should head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new federal regulatory body expected to create and enforce many new consumer-friendly financial regulations. The law says the President has the authority to appoint the bureau's head, subject to Senate approval.

The Boston Globe reports that Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, who many consider the originator of the idea for a comprehensive consumer regulator, has enormous public support as a candidate for the job. Her supporters have mounted a petition campaign to push for President Obama's nomination. However, the report notes, some in Washington believe she would have difficulty getting confirmed. 

Professor Warren spoke at length with Consumer Reports Money Blog last summer on the proposed consumer protection body. Here's the first of her interviews with us on the need for an independent consumer agency (now a bureau within the Federal Reserve), and here's her discourse on why existing consumer protections at the federal level aren't sufficient.

According to The New York Times, another candidate is Treasury Assistant Secretary Michael Barr. Here's testimony given last year by Barr (PDF) at a House subcommittee hearing on the need for an independent, comprehensive consumer protection body.

A third possibility is Eugene (Gene) Kimmelman, deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's antitrust division, and former head of the Washington Office of our own Consumers Union, pubisher of Consumer Reports. In his work for CU, Kimmelman oversaw a staff working on consumer issues as diverse as financial services, health care, telecommunications, food safety and product safey. He is a nationally renowned as an expert on consumer protection issues related to telecommunications deregulation. Click here for more on his bio (scroll down to the end).

David Butler, a CU spokesman, said CU had not announced its support of a particular candidate. "It's very early in the process," Butler said. "There are several good candidates under consideration. There are other names being floated out there. We're just excited that the bureau is on the verge of becoming a reality."—Tobie Stanger