In a case deciding the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), National Treasury Employees Union, et al. v. Russell Vought, the US District Court for the District of Columbia declared that the CFPB’s refusal to request funding violates the existing preliminary injunction. The December 30, 2025, ruling effectively requires the CFPB to request funding from the Federal Reserve – a move the CFPB has resisted in an effort to shutter the agency.
Case background
In February 2025, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), along with other plaintiffs, filed an action with the DC District Court against the CFPB and its acting director, Russell Vought, alleging that certain actions were an unlawful attempt to shut down the agency. In March 2025, the DC District Court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the CFPB to continue to operate and perform its statutorily required duties while the case is litigated. On appeal, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia initially vacated the DC District Court’s preliminary injunction, but in December, the appeals court vacated that judgment and issued a new order granting rehearing en banc and setting oral argument for February 24.
Funding lapse?
Meanwhile, in November 2025, the CFPB filed a notice to the DC District Court that it expected to run out of operating funds in early 2026. Based on an opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC opinion), the CFPB stated it could not legally request funds from the Federal Reserve because the Federal Reserve lacks “combined earnings” from which it may draw funding. The OLC opinion stated that the CFPB can only access funds from the Federal Reserve when the Federal Reserve is operating at a profit, and because the Federal Reserve at the time did not have profits, the OLC concluded that the agency could not transfer funds to the CFPB.
Request for clarification
In response to the notice, the NTEU filed a motion with the DC District Court seeking to clarify “that the defendants may not justify a violation of the preliminary injunction by refusing to request funding from the Federal Reserve.” In its ruling, the court clarified that “the defendants’ unilateral decision to decline to request funding, based on an unsupported interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act, contravenes the preliminary injunction.” The court rejected the OLC opinion’s interpretation of “combined earnings” as both inconsistent with “the way the Dodd-Frank Act has been consistently interpreted by all the parties involved” and the plain meaning of the term, effectively rejecting the CFPB’s efforts to refuse to request additional funding.
Now, everyone awaits February 24, when the full DC Court of Appeals will rehear the case en banc. We will continue to track the status of the litigation and the fate of the CFPB.