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Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) President Grover Norquist this week sent a letter to Congressional lawmakers urging support for S.J. Res. 47 introduced by Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID).

S.J. Res. 47 would use the Congressional Review Act to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) rule relating to arbitration clauses.

Text of the letter is below and can be found here.

August 1, 2017

The Honorable Mitch McConnell           The Honorable John Cornyn       
Majority Leader                                       Majority Whip
317 Russell Senate Office Building         517 Hart Senate Office Building 
Washington, DC 20510                            Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Mike Crapo
Chairman Senate Banking Committee
239 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Majority Whip Cornyn and Chairman Crapo:

On behalf of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) I write to express ATR’s strong support for using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recently published rule relating to arbitration agreements.

The CFPB’s arbitration rule would do little in the way of benefiting American consumers, and instead would result in a flood of class-action lawsuits putting more money in the pockets of trial lawyers. The arbitration rule would cost consumers billions and lead to a projected 6,000 class action lawsuits every five years.

According to the CFPB’s own study, average payouts to consumers after litigation was less than $2.00 per person, which is significantly lower that the amount awarded during the arbitration process. The same study found that only 20 percent of class-action lawsuits are approved and among those the average wait time for a settlement was roughly three years. This is compared to the arbitration process where the wait time is an average of only 6.9 months.

I urge you and your colleagues in Congress to support S.J. Res. 47 introduced by Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), which would use the authority granted under the Congressional Review Act to reverse the CFPB’s arbitration rule.

Sincerely,

Grover G. Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform