U.S. President Joe Biden will nominate Sarah Bloom Raskin as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s vice chairman for supervision, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The president will also tap Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson as Fed governors, according the report.
- Raskin was a governor at the central bank from 2010 to 2014 before serving as deputy secretary of the Treasury under the Obama administration. She is married to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
- Raskin’s nomination faces a challenge from the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking member, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. He criticised all three of Biden’s potential picks.
- “Sarah Bloom Raskin has specifically called for the Fed to pressure banks to choke off credit to traditional energy companies and to exclude those employers from any Fed emergency lending facilities,” he said in a statement Thursday evening citied by CNBC. “I have serious concerns that she would abuse the Fed’s narrow statutory mandates on monetary policy and banking supervision to have the central bank actively engaged in capital allocation.”
- “I will closely examine whether Ms. Cook and Mr. Jefferson have the necessary experience, judgment, and policy views to serve as Fed Governors,” he added.
- The nominations come at time of record inflation, as Biden tries to pass his multi-trillion-dollar Build Back Better legislation even in the face of opposition from some Senate Democrats whose every yes vote he needs to get the law passed.
- Cryptocurrency regulation is also of high concern to legislators who are trying to hash out bills as those in the industry lobby them heavily.
Read more: Crypto Learns to Play the DC Influence Game
