[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 22 (Thursday, February 3, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S504-S505]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          The Federal Reserve

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, this morning, the Banking Committee

[[Page S505]]

is examining three of President Biden's nominees to the Federal Reserve 
Board of Governors.
  The Fed is one of the most consequential institutions in America. Its 
decisions have massive ramifications for our citizens and for the world 
economy.
  At the same time, since its independence is paramount, the Fed's 
structure insulates the Governors from short-term influence and 
political pressure. When an institution this important is this 
independent, the guardrails that confine its power are extremely 
important.
  Now, Congress has given the Fed a statutory mandate that is really 
very clear and very limited. The Fed's dual mandate is maximizing 
employment and stabilizing prices. That is it. That is what the Fed 
exists to do.
  The Fed is meant to serve as our central bank. It is not meant to act 
as an unelected superlegislature that dabbles in broader economic 
policymaking should it strike its fancy.
  Its current leader, Chairman Powell, understands this keenly. But, 
unfortunately, President Biden's nominee for the powerful No. 2 slot 
wants to destroy this crucial distinction.
  Less than 2 years ago, Sarah Bloom Raskin launched a PR campaign 
saying the unelected Fed Governors should pursue liberal environmental 
goals that elected Democrats cannot get through Congress through the 
banking system.
  That bears repeating. President Biden's nominee for Fed Vice Chair 
wants unelected bureaucrats to financially bully the private sector 
into policy changes which lack enough support to become law the honest 
way.
  So let's get more specific. Ms. Raskin has argued repeatedly in print 
that the Fed should ideologically pick winners and losers in the energy 
sector.
  In 2020, she said unelected bureaucrats should have excluded 
companies that employ Americans and produce American energy from widely 
available rescue loans because oil and gas are not green enough for 
liberals' liking.
  Now, this is the same old Democratic war on fossil fuels and middle 
America being smuggled into a dangerous new forum.
  Washington Democrats want to raise Americans' gas prices. They want 
to make electricity even less affordable. They want it to cost more to 
keep your family warm in the dead of winter. And now they want to do 
all this in a radical new fashion where voters could never hold them 
accountable.
  The stated justification for this power grab is that climate change 
may impact the future of our economy; so therefore, it is the Fed's 
business--what nonsense with no limiting principle. Every major policy 
could affect our economy. Opening this Pandora's box would transform 
the Fed from an apolitical central bank into a hyperpolitical 
superlegislature. It would turn the venerable institution that is 
supposed to safeguard the American dollar into enforcers for a radical 
agenda that can't make it through Congress.

  So you had better believe liberal activists are already acknowledging 
this would not stop with climate issues. They have got a whole list of 
ideological goals they would like the Fed to literally force on our 
country.
  A year and a half ago, Democrats introduced legislation that would 
assign the Fed the mission of racial redistribution. They want to 
hardwire a kind of financial affirmative action plan into our banking 
system.
  Look, the American people don't want these wild ideas. So their 
elected Representatives actually don't support them. Now the far left 
wants to transplant these radical campaigns out of Congress and into 
our central bank, where American voters don't get a say. This is just 
another example of today's Democratic Party's refusing to work within 
the basic rules and institutions and, instead, trying to steamroll the 
guardrails to get their way.
  Ms. Raskin's crusade would hurt working families, kill American jobs, 
make our Nation less independent, and cripple the Fed's independence in 
the process. She wouldn't even need her colleagues' votes to do this 
damage. The Vice Chair for Supervision has significant unilateral 
powers. She might be able to do this all by herself.
  Here is the bottom line: Working families can't afford a nominee who 
is dying to jack up their bills and gas prices. Kentuckians and middle 
Americans can't afford a central banker who wants to bankrupt our 
industries and kill our jobs.
  The global economy can't afford for the Fed to become a partisan 
battlefield, and the American people will not accept their central bank 
acting like some woke--woke--superlegislature where citizens get no 
say.