Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), testifies before the Senate Budget Committee on February 13, 2018. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM

Since taking over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney has not hidden his dissatisfaction with the agency's enforcement record.

Mulvaney declared an end to the days of “pushing the envelope.” He signaled, in a strategic plan released this month, that the agency would make lighter use of perhaps the most powerful weapon in its enforcement arsenal: the authority to police “unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices.” In industry jargon, that's “UDAAP” for short.

But there is only so much Mulvaney, or any leader of the CFPB, can do to pull back on those enforcement efforts. The Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, also handed state attorneys general the power to claim violations of that federal law's prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices.