Senate Banking panel to hold Powell, Brainard hearings next week

January 04, 2022, 5:06 p.m. EST 1 Min Read

The Senate Banking Committee will hold separate hearings next week for Jerome Powell on his nomination to a second term as Federal Reserve chair and for Lael Brainard’s elevation to vice chair.

Powell will appear by himself before the committee on Jan. 11 at 10 a.m. in Washington, the committee said in a notice on its website Tuesday. Brainard, currently a Fed governor, will testify two days later alongside Sandra Thompson, the White House nominee to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Treasury Secretary Yellen And Fed Chair Powell Testify Before Senate Banking Committee On CARES Act — Jerome Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. The Federal Reserve chair, in his first public remarks on the omicron variant of the coronavirus, said it poses risks to both sides of the central bank's mandate to achieve stable prices and maximum employment.

President Biden has three more seats to fill on the board, including a new vice chair for supervision. Those picks, along with Powell and Brainard’s four-year terms for their slots, are all subject to approval by the full Senate.

Bloomberg News reported Monday that the White House is likely to nominate the economist Philip Jefferson for a seat on the Fed’s Board of Governors, according to people familiar with the matter, an appointment that would make him just the fourth Black man to hold the position in the central bank’s more than 100-year history.

Bloomberg News