Consumer protection is under attack. And by the way, it’s National Consumer Protection Week.

Since President Donald Trump took office, the nation has been on a crash course in constitutional law. Rarely a week goes by without a new struggle over power between the president and Congress. During his impeachment, the nation watched Congress debate the meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors, the extent of executive power over foreign affairs, and the White House's refusal to cooperate with a co-equal branch.

Few have noticed the other separation of powers fights that have continued in the meantime, ones that could radically restructure the operations of the Federal government. One of the most important issues -- control over the head of agencies -- comes before the Supreme Court this week in Seila Law v. CFPB.

According to Seila Law, a debt collection law firm, the leadership structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- its single director removable only for cause -- violates separation-of-powers. It asks the court to set aside the agency's civil investigative demand seeking documents. (In February 2017, CFPB issued one to determine whether the law firm violated the Telemarketing Sales Rule.)

In 2010, the Democratic-controlled 111th Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Title X of the statute created the CFPB, an independent agency, to regulate consumer financial services, an industry with a market cap of $41.8 billion. The CFPB serves as the first federal agency focused solely on protecting consumers from financial harm. Presaging the partisan politics that would arise over the next decade, only six Republicans (three House members and three Senators) crossed party lines to vote for the Dodd-Frank Act.

The CFPB was in response to the country's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Congress sought to avoid another financial collapse due to regulatory failure by establishing an agency with rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudicative powers. It would enjoy less legislative oversight and less executive oversight than any other agency. It has its own independent funding source (usually agencies are subject to appropriations and must bend to congressional will or risk losing funding. It is led by a single director (most independent agencies, like the Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, are led by a multi-member, bipartisan group). Its single director can only be fired "for cause" (most single-headed agencies serve at the president's pleasure and typically fall under the executive branch).

With CFPB so powerful, the stakes over its leadership and priorities are far higher than for traditional independent regulatory commissions or executive branch agencies. In this way, Congress' attempt to shield the CFPB from politics -- making it more insulated than any other agency -- had a perverse effect of politicizing it.

So, which way will the Supreme Court rule?

It could decide the entirety of Title X--not just the removal protection--is unconstitutional. This would mean that the agency created under the statute is also unconstitutional. Put another way, all CFPB actions since July 2011 when it began operations--payments to harmed consumers, guidance documents, supervisory examinations, nonpublic settlements with supervised entities, rulemakings, investigations, adjudication proceedings--would arguably have no force of law. And CFPB's operations would cease immediately.

This would wreak havoc to a $42 billion industry. And the death of an agency at the hands of the Supreme Court, which is already fighting for its own legitimacy, would be unprecedented. Then again, so has much of the last three years.

Alternatively, the court could agree that CFPB's structure is unconstitutional, but find the removal protection severable from Title X.

The court could adopt then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh's majority opinion for a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit in PHH v. CFPB, striking the "for cause" provision from the statute. (The D.C. Circuit sitting en banc later reversed.)

But striking the removal protection would transform the CFPB into an executive branch agency, invalidating the independent agency as it existed for nearly a decade.

Such an outcome would still wreak havoc to the industry. If the independent agency were unconstitutional since it began operating, then it must follow that all its actions were similarly unconstitutional and have no force of law. To be sure, in 2018, Acting Director Mick Mulvaney ratified some enforcement proceedings, but it's unclear whether he ratified all actions the agency had undertaken under its enforcement authority. Similarly, did his ratification apply to the agency's nonpublic supervisory actions? What about the agency's promulgated regulations? But even if his ratification applies to all CFPB actions, how would an individual's ratification resolve the agency's supposed unconstitutional leadership structure?

More problematic for the long term, however, is an executive branch CFPB would make regulatory uncertainty the new normal. Each change in political control of the White House would subject the consumer financial services industry to ideological swings. Such regulatory unpredictability stifles investment and hinders consumer-friendly innovation, which are critical in an industry beset by technological advancements in artificial intelligence.

Or the Supreme Court could find that Seila Law has no standing.

In his amicus brief, George Washington University Professor Alan Morrison champions this outcome. There is no case or controversy, as President Trump hasn't even attempted to fire the current CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger.

Such a result would give Congress time to amend the CFPB's leadership to a multi-member, bipartisan commission. The agency would retain a beneficial level of independence and its structure would be more constitutionally well-established. Most importantly, we would stop arguing about CFPB's legitimacy and turn our attention to whether the agency is in fact protecting American consumers.

As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Seila Law v. CFPB during National Consumer Protection Week, perhaps it will remember why Congress, a co-equal branch, created the agency in the first place: protecting consumers is consistent with ensuring the safety and soundness of our financial system.

If that's too Pollyannaish, then perhaps the court will recognize today's realities. The coronavirus is already sending the global economy into fits. The last thing our country needs is to compound the problem by sending a $42 billion industry spiraling.