SJR153 is a joint resolution that invokes chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code (the Congressional Review Act) to disapprove a Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection rule that would withdraw prior guidance titled "Bulletin 2022–06: Unfair Returned Deposited Item Fee Assessment Practices." The resolution names the Federal Register entries for both the original bulletin and the withdrawal and declares the withdrawal rule to have "no force or effect."
For regulated institutions and compliance officers, the practical consequence is straightforward: if enacted, the Bureau would be prevented—under the CRA's consequences of disapproval—from eliminating the bulletin's regulatory effect, and from reissuing a substantially similar withdrawal without new legislative authorization. That preserves the enforcement posture tied to the 2022 bulletin and puts immediate compliance obligations back on financial institutions that assess returned-deposit fees.
At a Glance
What It Does
The resolution disapproves a specific CFPB rule that would have withdrawn Bulletin 2022‑06 and states that the withdrawal rule shall have no force or effect. It relies on chapter 8 of title 5 (the Congressional Review Act), which also restricts the agency from reissuing a substantially identical rule without congressional authorization.
Who It Affects
Retail depository institutions that assess returned deposited item fees (banks, credit unions, fintechs with deposit accounts), their compliance and legal teams, the CFPB's enforcement program, and consumer advocates and borrowers who contest unfair fee assessments.
Why It Matters
This is a rare use of the CRA to block an agency's attempt to remove prior guidance rather than to overturn a substantive new regulation. It preserves the Bureau's prior interpretive stance on fee-assessment practices, increasing near-term enforcement risk for institutions that had anticipated relief from the withdrawal.
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What This Bill Actually Does
Bulletin 2022‑06, issued in 2022, set out the Bureau's view on practices that it considered unfair with respect to assessing fees when deposited items are returned. In 2025 the Bureau submitted a rule that would withdraw that guidance; SJR153 targets that 2025 submission.
The joint resolution does not amend the original bulletin itself; instead, it uses the Congressional Review Act to negate the Bureau's action to withdraw the bulletin and to render that withdrawing rule ineffective.
Under the Congressional Review Act, a successful disapproval resolution treats the targeted agency action as void and triggers a statutory bar on reissuing a rule in 'substantially the same' form unless Congress authorizes it. Practically, that means the CFPB could not simply republish the same withdrawal without a new statute; any attempt to accomplish the same result through similar text or effect would be legally fraught.For institutions, the immediate outcome of enactment is that the compliance baseline reverts to the Bureau's 2022 guidance: examiners and enforcement attorneys can continue to rely on the bulletin's views when assessing returned-deposit fee practices.
For the Bureau, the CRA disapproval removes a tool (the withdrawal) from its regulatory toolkit and constrains its ability to revise its position without further legislative action. For the market, this produces a durable but blunt result: it preserves the status quo on consumer protection while limiting administrative flexibility.
The Five Things You Need to Know
SJR153 expressly targets the Bureau rule published at 90 Fed. Reg. 20084 (May 12, 2025), which would have withdrawn Bulletin 2022‑06.
The resolution cites the original Bulletin's Federal Register citation: 87 Fed. Reg. 66940 (November 7, 2022).
The joint resolution invokes chapter 8 of title 5, U.S.C. (the Congressional Review Act) to render the withdrawal rule "no force or effect.", Senator Ben Luján introduced SJR153 on March 26, 2026, in the 119th Congress as a joint resolution disapproving an agency action under the CRA.
If enacted, the CRA's downstream effect would bar the CFPB from reissuing a substantially identical withdrawal without a new statute, restricting agency options for revising the policy.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Congressional disapproval under the CRA
The resolution opens with the formal enacting language required for a joint resolution, signaling that this action is taken under the Congressional Review Act (chapter 8 of title 5). That placement is important because the CRA supplies both the procedural vehicle for disapproval and the legal consequences that follow once a resolution becomes law.
Identifies the specific rule to be disapproved
The core operative sentence names the Bureau's rule that dealt with withdrawing the prior bulletin, citing its Federal Register entry. By pinpointing the specific Federal Register notice, the resolution avoids broader language and confines the disapproval to that withdrawal action rather than the original bulletin or other CFPB rules.
States that the withdrawal rule shall have no force or effect
The resolution concludes by declaring the targeted rule void. Under CRA precedent and statutory text, that declaration not only nullifies the withdrawal but also activates the CRA's reissuance bar, which has the practical effect of preventing the agency from accomplishing the same policy change through an essentially identical rule without further congressional action.
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Explore Finance in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Bank customers who were subject to returned‑deposit fees — preserving the Bureau's 2022 guidance maintains the standards the CFPB used to scrutinize unfair fee assessments.
- Consumer‑protection groups and legal aid organizations — they retain a published Bureau statement they can cite in complaints, enforcement referrals, and litigation.
- State attorneys general and other enforcement partners — they keep a federal interpretive baseline that can support coordinated actions against unfair fee practices.
Who Bears the Cost
- The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — the resolution limits the agency's discretionary ability to revise or withdraw prior guidance and constrains its rulemaking options moving forward.
- Depository institutions and fintechs that sought regulatory relief — institutions that had planned compliance changes in anticipation of the withdrawal must reverse course and bear transition costs.
- Compliance, legal, and operations teams at affected firms — they face renewed review, potential remediation work, and the risk of enforcement actions tied to the bulletin's standards.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is whether Congress should use the Congressional Review Act to preserve agency guidance aimed at consumer protection, thereby locking in a particular regulatory posture, or whether agencies should be free to revise or withdraw guidance through administrative processes — a choice between durable consumer safeguards and administrative flexibility to respond to evolving markets and evidence.
The resolution uses the Congressional Review Act's blunt instrument to preserve an administrative bulletin that the agency itself sought to withdraw. That produces several tensions.
First, CRA disapproval bypasses ordinary notice-and-comment rulemaking and substitutes a political check for an administrative reconsideration process; that raises the question of whether Congress is the right forum to resolve technical regulatory judgments. Second, the statutory bar on reissuing a "substantially similar" rule is intentionally vague.
Agencies, regulated entities, and courts can and likely will litigate whether a future CFPB action crosses that line, creating further uncertainty rather than a stable regulatory baseline.
Implementation will also create operational friction. Firms that reacted to the 2025 withdrawal by changing pricing, disclosures, or systems may incur reversal costs; examiners and enforcement teams will rely on the bulletin even though it was originally issued as guidance rather than a notice-and-comment rule.
Finally, this move may chill future agency efforts to refine or retract guidance: agencies may avoid issuing bulletins altogether or will rely more heavily on opaque supervisory guidance, shifting regulatory power away from publicly reviewable rulemaking and into enforcement discretion.
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