On January 9, the defendants in National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) v. Vought filed a notice and exhibit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia confirming that the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) has now requested funding from the Federal Reserve Board (Federal Reserve), as required by Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s December 30, 2025 order.

In our prior post (here), we explained how Judge Jackson rejected the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) view of the CFPB’s funding statute and clarified that the Bureau could not engineer a “funding lapse” by declining to request transfers from the Federal Reserve in order to evade the court’s existing preliminary injunction. The latest filing is the Bureau’s concrete response to that ruling.

Background

As previously discussed, Judge Jackson’s December 30 order addressed two key issues. First, she held that the term “combined earnings” found in 12 U.S.C. § 5497(a)(1) refers to the Federal Reserve System’s earnings, not a net profit figure reduced by interest expense, thereby rejecting OLC’s narrower interpretation. Second, she clarified that the CFPB cannot claim a funding “lapse” of its own making. Because the injunction obligates the Bureau to continue operating, maintain staffing, facilities, and core statutory functions, the court concluded that the duty to seek necessary funding is implicit in those ongoing obligations. Choosing not to request funds, Judge Jackson wrote, would “deliberately frustrate” the injunction and could not be used as a defense to noncompliance.

The January 9 Notice and Funding Request

In the January 9 notice, the defendants inform the court that, in accordance with the December 30 order, the CFPB Acting Director “has prepared the required funding request and, today, has submitted it to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.” The notice attaches the funding request as Exhibit A.

That funding request from Acting Director Vought to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recites the Consumer Financial Protection Act’s funding provision, which requires the Federal Reserve to transfer each quarter an “amount determined by the Director to be reasonably necessary” from the “combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System” for the CFPB to carry out its authorities. The letter expressly notes that the Acting Director disagrees with Judge Jackson’s opinion and order regarding OLC’s interpretation of “combined earnings,” but states that, “pursuant to that opinion and order,” he has determined that $145,000,000 is the amount necessary for the Bureau to carry out its authorities for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2026.

The letter instructs that the funds be deposited into the CFPB’s Fund at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with separate disbursement instructions to transfer funding into the Treasury General Account and to direct investments.

Next Steps

The January 9 notice does not resolve the underlying merits of NTEU v. Vought or the broader question of how far the executive branch may go in attempting to dismantle or dramatically curtail a congressionally created agency like the CFPB. Those issues remain before the D.C. Circuit, which has agreed to rehear the case en banc and restored much of Judge Jackson’s preliminary injunction.

We will continue to monitor developments in the district court and the D.C. Circuit litigation, including any further disputes over the Bureau’s compliance with the injunction and the ultimate contours of the legal framework governing the CFPB’s funding and ongoing operations.