# Disagreement between the US Chamber of Commerce and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 5, 2024, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500 "2024-03-05T17:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/1 "2024-03-05T17:27:09Z")
I wasn’t sure where else to put this: A news story that I might need some help with understanding. So they’re trying to create a rule that would cap credit card fees at $8. This article says that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is behind it, but later it mentions that the US Chamber of Commerce will file a lawsuit against the rule. Aren’t they both government agencies? Why wouldn’t they work together on this? Sorry if this doesn’t fit in the Biden subject. [https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/investing/credit-card-late-fees-biden/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/investing/credit-card-late-fees-biden/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/2 "2024-03-05T17:31:30Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Aren’t they both government agencies? The US Chamber of Commerce is a business lobbying organization. Not a government agency. The US Department of Commerce is a government agency. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/3 "2024-03-05T17:31:34Z")
No the US Chamber of Commerce is an organization of businesses. It is essentially a lobbying group. ---
**Author:** ![mjmartin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mjmartin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmartin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/4 "2024-03-05T17:31:43Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Aren’t they both government agencies? No. The US Chamber of Commerce is a private lobbying group. It represents mainly multinational corporations. > **[United States Chamber of Commerce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce)** > > The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is a business association advocacy. It is the largest lobbying group in the United States. The group was founded in April 1912 out of local chambers of commerce at the urging of President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of Commerce and Labor Charles Nagel. It was Taft's belief that the "government needed to deal with a group that could speak with authority for the interests of business". > The U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims to represent 3 milli... You might be thinking of the US Department of Commerce, which is part of the executive branch. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/5 "2024-03-05T17:39:11Z")
Thank you all for your swift replies. I not only Googled US Chamber of Commerce, but I also work in a school, and yet I missed that it was a lobbying group. SIGH. I should ban myself out of embarrassment now. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/6 "2024-03-05T18:14:13Z")
If you learned something you didn’t already know, this was a successful encounter, not a reason for embarrassment. After all, “I learned something new. I quit!” doesn’t seem like a positive response. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2024, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/7 "2024-03-05T18:15:41Z")
Quite true. I couldn’t tell the kids to keep plugging along if I was going to quit so easily. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disagreement-between-the-us-chamber-of-commerce-and-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau/998500/8 "2024-03-08T13:07:18Z")
This point about late fees even made it into the State of the Union speech last night. How to tell you lobby for business - your point of view is “lowering penalties from $32 to $8 will hurt consumers by encouraging them to pay late, thus lowering their credit score…” Presumably if you pay late then you incur extra usurious interest costs, so the late fee is just a gratuitous insult.