Joint Comment Letter to CFPB on "Junk Fees Timing Study"

Dear Mr. May and Mr. Bestani,

The American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association, National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the Associations) appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (Bureau) request for approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of an information collection titled "Junk Fees Timing Study" (Timing Study). The Bureau seeks approval of the Timing Study under the Generic Information Collection titled "Generic Information Collection Plan for Studies of Consumers Using Controlled Trials in Field and Economic Laboratory Settings." As discussed in greater detail below, the Timing Study does not fall under the limited uses that the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) permits for a generic clearance.

Under the PRA, a federal agency that seeks to conduct a survey or collect information from ten or more individuals or entities, as here, must obtain approval by OIRA, an office within the Office of Management and Budget. Congress enacted the PRA to ensure that, when a federal agency collects information from ten or more individuals or entities, the survey or information collection provides practical "benefit" to the agency and "maximize[s] the utility of information" collected, among other purposes. Congress sought to achieve these goals by requiring two opportunities for the public to comment on the collection request. First, the agency must publish a 60-day notice in the Federal Register soliciting comment on the proposed collection. This first round of comments is meant to inform the agency's—and, importantly, OIRA's—consideration of the proposed collection. At the conclusion of the comment period, the agency must submit the collection request to OIRA and publish a second notice to announce the start of OIRA’s review and of a second, 30-day public comment period. Under the PRA, the public notices must provide sufficient information about the proposed information collection, including a summary of the collection, a description of the need for the information, the proposed frequency of responses, and an estimated industry burden calculation. The PRA directs OIRA, when it considers the agency’s request, to "maximize the practical utility of and public benefit from [the] information collected."

The PRA provides no exception (applicable to the Timing Study) to the statute's requirement that the public be provided with two opportunities for comment each time an agency seeks to conduct a survey or information collection. Nonetheless, since at least 2010, OIRA has allowed agencies to pursue information collections without providing an opportunity for public comment when the agency seeks to collect information under an already-approved "generic clearance."

Download the comment letter to read the full text.