Senate Banking panel to hold Powell, Brainard hearings next week

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.

Al Drago/Bloomberg

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.