The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s acting director, Mick Mulvaney, intensified his efforts this week to curb an agency he has denounced as a regulator run amok. His latest tactic: starve it of cash.

The consumer bureau is funded directly by the Federal Reserve and sends the central bank a request each quarter for money for its operations. On Wednesday, Mr. Mulvaney sent a letter requesting $0 for the current quarter, which runs through March.

The bureau has been sitting on a $177.1 million reserve fund, Mr. Mulvaney said in his letter. He plans to use that to cover the bureau’s projected quarterly expenses of $145 million.

“I see no practical reason for such a large reserve,” Mr. Mulvaney wrote. “It is my intent to spend down the reserve until it is of a much smaller size.”