On Feb. 18, a coalition of industry trade groups, including the American Financial Services Association and the national Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In the letter, the coalition asked the CFPB to publicly respond to the 2014 Charles River Associates’ study, which found that the methodology used by the bureau to measure disparities in auto dealer reserve was inconsistent and unsound.

After an exhaustive, nearly year-long study, which included the review of 8.2 million auto loans, Charles River Associates concluded that the CFPB’s methodology was “conceptually flawed in its application and subject to significant bias and estimation error.” As a result of dealers not being allowed to record information about race or gender when processing loans, the CFPB had to extrapolate that information through a statistical method using names and addresses. Incredibly, it managed to correctly identify African-American borrowers only 24 percent of the time.

Just think about that: 24 percent! That level of accuracy isn’t even acceptable in batter’s box. It’s astounding that the CFPB is continuing their crusade against auto financing armed with such flimsy data. AIADA and its sister associations firmly believe that discrimination has no place in our industry. If it exists, we all agree that it needs to be stamped out. The problem is, it doesn’t exist, and by trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, the CFPB is risking a series of unintended consequences that will ultimately hurt consumers.

While we wait for a public response to this most recent letter, it’s a good time for dealers to consider what damage the CFPB could do to their businesses. If the CFPB’s end game is flat rates, consider what impact that would have on your customers, your employees, your community, and your bottom line.  AIADA is fighting the CFPB in Washington, D.C. You can join that fight without leaving your office.

By hosting a Member of Congress at your dealership, you have an opportunity to educate them on how our retail system works, how we handle financing, and how much we value all of our customers. AIADA will handle every aspect of the visit, from issuing the invitation to providing you with talking points. Through experience I can assure you that your representative will be eager to meet with you and your employees.

Having Congress on our side is a critical part of our defense against the CFPB. By hosting a dealer visit, your representative will see firsthand the negative impact a rogue regulatory agency could have on their local economies.

Bradley Hoffman is the 2015 chairman of the American International Automobile Dealers Association.