[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized to speak in 
opposition to Governor Powell's nomination to serve as Chair of the 
Federal Reserve Bank.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I am concerned that as Chair of the Fed, 
Governor Powell will roll back critical rules that help guard against 
another financial crisis, and that is simply a risk we cannot afford.
  While big banks have bounced back from the 2008 financial crisis and 
are posting record profits, many American families are still trying to 
rebuild their lives 10 years later. Yet Governor Powell seems to think 
that the No. 1 problem with our current financial system is that we are 
too hard on the banks. In his confirmation hearing, he said that he 
would ``continue to consider appropriate ways to ease regulatory 
burdens.'' When I asked him if there were a single financial rule he 
thought should be stronger--just a single provision in one of the Fed's 
dozens of rules where there might be an unintended loophole or where an 
innovative product has introduced a new risk into the system--he 
couldn't name a single one. Not one.
  In my questions for the record, I also asked Governor Powell about a 
report that the Treasury Department put out last June. This report was 
really just a cut-and-paste job of the banking lobbyists' wish lists 
for rule rollbacks. Governor Powell could not identify any 
recommendations in that report that he disagreed with. Again, not a 
single one.
  That is not all. At Governor Powell's confirmation hearing, when my 
Republican colleague Senator Kennedy asked him about whether there are 
any institutions today that are too big to fail, Governor Powell said: 
``I would say no to that.'' Governor Powell expanded on that statement 
in his answers to my written questions, saying that ``we have made 
enough progress that the failure of one of our most systemically 
important financial institutions, while undoubtedly posing a severe 
shock to the economy, could more likely than not be resolved without 
critically undermining the financial stability of the United States.''
  First of all, that is an incredibly narrow definition of what too big 
to fail means. But second of all, and more importantly, Governor 
Powell's view is out of step with the mainstream of serious experts. 
Giant institutions still have the ability to blow up our economy, and 
that is the biggest problem facing the Fed and other regulators.
  I am deeply concerned that as soon as Governor Powell unpacks his 
boxes in the Chairman's office, he will begin weakening the new rules 
that Congress and the Fed had put in place after the 2008 financial 
crisis, and he will have help. Right down the hall will be his close 
friend, Randal Quarles, the Fed's new Vice Chair for Supervision. 
Governor Powell told me when we met that he intended to rely a lot on 
Vice Chair Quarles on regulatory issues. That is a really dangerous 
prospect.
  Before coming to the Fed, Vice Chair Quarles spent more than a decade 
in private equity, where he made his mark arguing for weaker rules on 
big banks--and he has gotten a running start now that he is in the Fed. 
In a speech a few weeks ago at his old private equity firm, Quarles 
announced that he was working on reducing capital standards for Wall 
Street banks, weakening the Volcker rule, and making stress tests 
easier for big banks to pass. In other words, he has already set up his 
to-do list to gut measures put in place after the financial crisis that 
are there to try to keep our economy safer.
  So Governor Powell says that he will take his cues from a guy who 
wants to get rid of as many rules as he can and take the teeth out of 
the rules that he can't. No thank you. That will make American families 
less safe. It will make the American economy less safe.
  To make matters worse, Powell's gifts to the giant banks will come at 
a time when banks of all sizes made gigantic profits last year and got 
giant tax giveaways in the bill that was passed in December. Good 
grief, when will enough be enough for these guys? But even with the 
banks rolling in money, the army of lobbyists and executives have come 
back, storming Capitol Hill and the halls of the Fed, spinning a story 
that financial rules are throttling them and need to be cut back.
  We need a Fed Chair who can stand up to Wall Street and think about 
the needs of working families in this country. We need someone who 
believes in the toughest rules for banks, not in weaker rules for 
banks. That person is not Governor Powell.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke 
cloture on the Powell nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.