The House on July 8 passed a fiscal year 2017 funding bill thatwould place new restrictions on the CFPB, although those proposalsare likely to be dropped when the agency's appropriations bill isfinalized.

Voting 239-185, the House passed H.R. 5485, after fighting offDemocratic attempts to delete those restrictions. Thoserestrictions include prohibiting the agency to enact payday lendingrules and regulations restricting arbitration agreements until itconducts new studies on their likely impact.

The bill, as passed, also would subject the agency to the annualappropriations process. In addition, the report accompanying thebill urged the CFPB to study the impact of its rules on smallfinancial institutions.

Many of the CFPB restrictions have been endorsed by credit uniontrade groups.

President Obama's senior aids recommended vetoing a bill thatwould subject the CFPB to the annual appropriations process.

However, all of those provisions are likely to be deleted whenCongress enacts FY17 funding for the federal government.

CFPB restrictions are not included in the Senate version of theFY17 Financial Services funding bill. In addition, Obama's senior advisers have recommended that he veto any fundingbill that includes those restrictions. And when HouseRepublicans have included them in funding bills in the past, theSenate has not accepted them.

Many of the CFPB proposals also are in the Dodd-Frank overhaul billdeveloped by House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling(R-Texas), but that bill is unlikely to become law this year, givenpartisan divisions in the Senate and the short period of timeCongress is likely to be in session through the end of theyear.