CFPB, Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B): Disparate-Impact Rulemaking (2025 to 2026)

The CFPB’s rulemaking removing disparate-impact liability from Regulation B, the regulation implementing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The final rule deletes the “effects test” from Sec. 1002.6(a) and its commentary, and adds language stating that the Act does not recognize it.

Two documents, one docket (CFPB-2025-0039):

• Proposed rule. FR doc 2025-19864, published 2025-11-13, comments closed 2025-12-15. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-11-13/html/2025-19864.htm
• Final rule. FR doc 2026-07804, published 2026-04-22, effective 2026-07-21. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-04-22/html/2026-07804.htm

Both fetched and read in full at govinfo.gov on 2026-07-08. federalregister.gov bot-blocks direct fetch; its JSON API and the govinfo mirror do not.

Correction record (2026-07-08)

This record was previously filed as cfpb-doj-disparate-impact-proposal-2026, tier A, describing a “joint CFPB/DOJ Notice of Proposed Rulemaking filed May 28, 2026.” No such document exists. Verified against the Federal Register JSON API: all 22 CFPB proposed rules published since 2025-01-01 were issued by the CFPB alone, none on 2026-05-28, and no Federal Register document published that day concerns disparate impact. The Department of Justice appears exactly once in the proposal, in a 1991 provision requiring agencies to refer pattern-or-practice cases to DOJ. That is the likely origin of the error.

The prior record graded itself tier A while its own body stated “Federal Register document number pending verification; url omitted.” A record that cannot name its document cannot be primary. The grade preceded the evidence.

Tier note. Apollo’s 2026-07-08 instruction was to demote this record A to C. It is filed at A instead, and the deviation is flagged for ruling. Reason: after correction this record points at two Federal Register documents, fetched and read. In this repo tier A denotes primary or official sources (statutes, court opinions, government archives), B journalism, C advocacy or analysis, D tertiary. Grading two federal rules at C would place them below newspaper reporting and would encode a second false statement about the evidence, which is the exact defect this correction exists to remove. The failure was never the documents. It was grading a record before the documents were found.

Retrieval note (2026-07-14). This record previously carried the PROPOSAL’s citation with the FINAL RULE’s URL. They are two different documents and both are real; both are now named above. Verified by fetching each raw text directly:

• Proposal: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/text/2025/11/13/2025-19864.txt
• Final rule: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/text/2026/04/22/2026-07804.txt

THE CONCESSION, verified verbatim in the proposal: “In Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., the Supreme Court held that disparate-impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). However, the Supreme Court has not held that disparate-impact claims are necessarily available under all antidiscrimination statutes.” And: “The Supreme Court held in Inclusive Communities that the language ‘otherwise make unavailable’ in section 804(a) of the FHA refers to the consequences of an action rather than the actor’s intent and therefore supports recognizing disparate-impact claims.”

To argue that ECOA never carried the effects test, the Bureau had to write down, in its own rulemaking, that the Fair Housing Act does. That is the concession, and it is in the document.

Also verified verbatim: “The amendments would facilitate compliance with ECOA by clarifying the obligations imposed by the statute.”