CFPB Plans To Request More Funding Ahead Of April Cliff

The piece is reporting that, despite earlier efforts to starve the CFPB of cash, the Bureau now plans to ask the Fed for another tranche of money before its current funding runs out on March 31, in order to avoid an “April cliff” where operations would otherwise wind down or cease.

What “April cliff” means

• The CFPB requested about $145$ million from the Fed in January to fund operations only through the end of March, after a D.C. district court ordered the Bureau to keep requesting funds in the NTEU litigation.

• DOJ has previously told the court the Bureau anticipated exhausting its existing balance in early 2026, which created the near‑term funding “cliff.”

What’s new in this article

• DOJ told Judge Amy Berman Jackson that Acting Director Russell Vought will make another request to the Fed “by the end of the month” and that the request “won’t be for zero,” i.e., he has backed off the earlier position of refusing to draw funds.

• The request is expected to cover at least the next quarter beyond March 31, extending operations into the second half of FY 2026 within the much‑reduced cap imposed by last year’s reconciliation bill (cutting the funding ceiling roughly in half).

Legal and political backdrop

• The NTEU v. CFPB/Vought case produced a preliminary injunction requiring the Bureau to keep seeking funds and to halt certain shutdown‑style steps (RIFs, work stoppages, and mass contract terminations) pending further proceedings.

• Separately, Congress cut the statutory funding cap from 12% to around 6.5% of the Fed’s 2009 operating expenses, locking in a structurally smaller Bureau even if it keeps requesting funds.

Practical implications for 2026 activity

• The immediate risk of a hard shutdown on April 1 is now lower, because another request will likely be granted under the Dodd‑Frank framework.

• But the Bureau is operating with a lower ceiling and ongoing litigation and GAO scrutiny of staffing and reorganization, so enforcement and supervision intensity will likely remain below pre‑2025 levels, and timelines for new rules could stretch.