Biden's CFPB spent years forcing your local banker to interrogate small business owners about their race, gender, and sexual orientation just to get a loan.
Now Russ Vought just killed that rule for good.
And what Democrats did to bury the fix before Trump got here is exactly why they lost.
How Biden's CFPB Turned a 13-Point Law Into an 81-Question Interrogation
This story starts in 2010, when Congress passed Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act.
The original law was narrow – 13 data points, focused on basic loan information.
But Biden's CFPB Director Rohit Chopra had bigger plans.
Chopra wasn't a neutral bureaucrat trying to modernize a dusty regulation.
He was an aggressive left-wing activist the Chamber of Commerce accused of "imprudent and unlawful actions" – the same man Senate Republicans accused of "abuses of power" – and he used Section 1071 as a weapon.
By the time his team finished in March 2023, a 13-point reporting requirement had become an 81-field data dump demanding everything from the borrower's LGBTQI+ business status to denial reasons to detailed pricing information.
Sen. John Kennedy called it exactly what it was.
"They took our 13 pieces of information that we asked for, and they have expanded it to 81," Kennedy said. "All of a sudden, they want a book."
That book wasn't about protecting small businesses.
It was about building a database Chopra's team could mine for disparate impact lawsuits – a way to reverse-engineer discrimination claims against any bank that didn't lend the "right" demographic mix.
That's not speculation.
Financial regulation expert Todd Zywicki said the quiet part out loud: there was "a sense he was getting that info in order to be able to reverse-engineer disparate impact cases by slicing the data in particular ways."
Biden Vetoed the Fix and Then Vetoed It Again
Here's what your local news didn't tell you.
Republicans fought back immediately.
The Senate voted 53-44 to kill Chopra's rule under the Congressional Review Act.
The House voted 221-202 to do the same.
Bipartisan majorities in both chambers said this rule was wrong.
Biden vetoed it in December 2023 – protecting the rule that was forcing your local banker to ask farmers about their sexual orientation before approving a crop loan.
The American Bankers Association had warned the rule was invasive, a threat to small business privacy, and would actively discourage banks from lending to the very businesses it claimed to help.
Didn't matter.
Biden kept it alive – and the rule spent the next two years grinding through three separate federal lawsuits and endless compliance deadline extensions while every day it existed cost real businesses real money.
Russ Vought Just Made It Official
Acting CFPB Director Russ Vought finalized the replacement rule today, and the numbers tell the story.
Savings: $166 million annually.
The new rule strips it back to the 13 data points Congress actually required.
Gone are the LGBTQI+ business status questions.
Gone are the invasive pricing details.
Gone are the denial reasons Chopra's team wanted to mine for lawsuit ammunition.
Small lenders are now exempt entirely – only institutions originating 1,000 or more covered loans in each of the two prior years have to comply, up from Chopra's 100-loan threshold.
That single change drops compliance from roughly 30% of banks and credit unions down to just 2%.
Farmers get a complete carve-out.
Merchant cash advance providers – the short-term lenders that keep small businesses alive between payroll cycles – are off the hook.
"These reforms not only make borrowing more affordable for America's small businesses, including our farmers," Vought said, "but minimize burdens on those needing quick access to credit without requiring them to answer unnecessary and invasive DEI questions introduced by the Biden-Harris-Chopra Administration."
This Is What the DEI Bureaucracy Actually Looked Like in Your Life
Democrats spent years telling you DEI mandates were about fairness.
Here's what they actually looked like: a farmer sitting across from his community banker, answering questions about his sexual orientation – so a Biden appointee in Washington could build a case against that bank if the demographic breakdown of its loan approvals didn't match what the federal government expected.
Trump's team just did what Congress couldn't get past Biden's veto pen – and $166 million a year goes back where it belongs.
Sources:
- Sean Moran, "Exclusive – Trump Admin Finalizes Rule Scrapping 'Invasive' DEI Requirements for Small Business Lending," Breitbart News, April 30, 2026.
- "Much-Maligned Small-Business Data Rule Close to Finish Line," American Banker, April 2026.
- "CFPB to Reopen Rulemaking on the Section 1071 Small Business Loan Data Collection and Reporting Rule," Consumer Finance Monitor, April 4, 2025.
- "President Biden Vetoes Congressional Override of CFPB Section 1071 Small Business Lending Rule," Consumer Finance Monitor, December 22, 2023.
- "An Uncertain Future for CFPB's Section 1071 Rule Regarding Small Business Lending Data," Stinson LLP, February 2025.
