[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 125 (Tuesday, July 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S4186]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        TRIBUTE TO SCOTT ALVAREZ

  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, today the Senator from Ohio and I wish to 
speak about Scott Alvarez, general counsel of the Board of Governors of 
the Federal Reserve System.
  Mr. Alvarez is retiring after a 36-year career with the Board of 
Governors, including the last 12 as general counsel.
  He joined the board's legal division in 1981, immediately after 
graduating from Georgetown Law School, and worked as a staff attorney 
on bank regulatory issues for many years, until he was named general 
counsel in 2004.
  In that role, he served as a key adviser to Chairmen Greenspan and 
Bernanke and Chair Yellen.
  He was also general counsel of the Federal Open Market Committee, and 
he was the chief lawyer in carrying out some of the Fed's other roles, 
including overseeing the payments system and issuing currency.
  I have enjoyed working with Mr. Alvarez over the years and have 
appreciated the insights and feedback he has provided to me and the 
Banking Committee.
  On a personal note, his help was particularly valuable in 2006, when 
the Senate passed the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2006, 
which was then signed into law by President Bush.
  I want to thank Mr. Alvarez for his assistance on that bill and 
others and for his service to the Federal Reserve and to the country.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I want to echo the comments of the senior 
Senator from Idaho, the chairman of the Banking Committee, and thank 
Mr. Alvarez for his service at the Federal Reserve.
  I specifically want to thank him for his service during the financial 
crisis of 2008. Our country faced daunting challenges during that 
period, and the Federal Reserve and the government's response to the 
financial crisis was not an easy undertaking.
  The crisis demanded great effort and ingenuity from many people. It 
required close coordination across the executive branch, the regulatory 
agencies, Congress, and the private sector. Working with key 
decisionmakers at the board and throughout the government, Mr. Alvarez 
played an important role in developing and articulating the legal 
dimensions to virtually every initiative taken by the Federal Reserve 
to address the crisis.
  Mr. Alvarez also worked closely with Congress during consideration of 
the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and 
played a crucial role in implementing rulemakings required of the 
Federal Reserve by Dodd-Frank. I am particularly grateful for the work 
he did to implement strong rules to increase the capital and leverage 
requirements for the Nation's largest banks--a necessary and critical 
step after the crisis--and the work that he did with my office in 
making one of the first substantive amendments to Dodd-Frank related to 
capital standards for insurance companies.
  Scott Alvarez has served the Federal Reserve and the American people 
with great distinction and deserves thanks for a job well done.

                          ____________________