[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 30 (Tuesday, February 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S700-S701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Nominations

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I overheard some of my colleagues here on 
the Senate floor complaining about what happened at the Senate Banking 
Committee today, and I want to address this, set the record straight, 
and provide a little historical context, which I think is important.
  Last week, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman 
Brown, indicated that he wanted to have votes on six nominees within 
the Banking Committee jurisdiction. Five were to be Governors of the 
Federal Reserve--they had been nominated to Federal Reserve posts--and 
one was the Director of the FHFA.
  Now, I told the chairman last week that as far as Republicans on the 
committee were concerned, we were perfectly fine proceeding to votes on 
five of the six. Five of the six nominees we were ready to have votes 
on. Those five included the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jay 
Powell; Vice Chair Lael Brainard; nominee Professor Lisa Cook; nominee 
Professor Philip Jefferson; and the nominee to be the Director of the 
FHFA, Sandra Thompson. All of those, we were fine with a vote.
  By the way, some of those nominees have significant Republican 
support. At least one, I think, has no Republican support on the 
committee, but that didn't matter. We were prepared to go and vote on 
these nominees.
  But the sixth nominee whom Chairman Brown wanted to have a vote on 
was Sarah Bloom Raskin, and I told him then--this was like last 
Thursday--that she had chosen not to answer quite a number of important 
questions that we had. That is the normal part of the vetting process 
that a committee goes through when there is a nominee. In particular, 
she chose not to answer questions about a highly unusual transaction 
that occurred at a company on whose board she sat after she left her 
position as a Governor at the Fed and then a senior Treasury staffer.
  Chairman Brown said he would help us get answers to these questions, 
but we have been stonewalled. We were stonewalled before. We have been 
stonewalled since. So, today, I informed the chairman that it is the 
view of the Republican members of the committee that we can still go 
ahead and vote on the five.
  I have heard them talk about how important it is that we populate the 
Fed with Governors. Four out of the five nominees we were prepared to 
vote on are Fed Governors. We could have had that vote already. We 
could have that vote tonight. We could do it tomorrow. There is no 
problem with that. But rather than advance five nominees through the 
committee, Chairman Brown decided he would rather have zero, so we are 
at zero. That is his choice. We could have had five advance through the 
committee.
  You have to ask yourself, why would it be so important to my 
Democratic colleagues that we forgo the opportunity to move five along 
the process if it means that, for now, Sarah Bloom Raskin doesn't get a 
vote for what, by the way, would be a 10-year term on the Fed? And 
there is only one plausible explanation for why they would be willing 
to leave all these vacancies when they could go down the road through 
the process of filling these vacancies. Apparently it is because 
getting a climate warrior into this spot on the Fed Board of 
Governors--specifically, the Vice Chairman of Supervision; that is the 
spot for which Sarah Bloom Raskin has been nominated--getting her there 
must be the most important thing. In fact, it must be more important 
than getting all five of the other people confirmed because that is the 
decision they made today.
  So then you have to ask yourself, why would it be that important? Why 
would it be so important to get Ms. Raskin in this spot at the Fed? 
Well, again, I think it is pretty clear what is going on here, and that 
is that our Democratic colleagues have a climate agenda for which they 
don't want to take responsibility. We are seeing this manifest itself. 
It is the energy policy of this majority, the Democratic majority and 
this administration, that has contributed significantly to this huge 
surge in energy prices. It is kind of causing a panic over there 
because the American people don't really enjoy paying $5 a gallon or 
more for gasoline. They are not looking forward to a 20-, 30-, 50-
percent increase in the cost of heating their homes. They are not in 
favor of the policies that our Democratic colleagues advocate, which is 
to shut down pipelines, ban drilling, make sure we make less energy, 
make sure we produce less oil and gas, the energy we need for our daily 
lives, because when you do produce much less, prices go up. The 
American people are not that enthusiastic about this.
  So for our Democratic colleagues, it is a bit of a dilemma, right? 
How do you satisfy the climate warriors who absolutely want much higher 
prices, absolutely want to shut down energy production--but how do you 
do that without getting crosswise with the voters who really don't 
think that is a good idea? How could you balance that?
  Well, there is a way to do it. Just shirk your responsibility and put 
it on the Fed. Perfect. Don't deal with legislation. Don't let the 
American people know what you want to do. And certainly don't take 
responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Let the Fed do it. 
And then if the Fed does these policies and prices go through the roof, 
blame them. It is perfect.
  And, lo and behold, we have the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin. She 
has very impressive credentials. She is

[[Page S701]]

very smart. But she has also told us exactly what she wants to do. She 
has told us repeatedly. She has told us in speeches. She has written 
op-eds. She has written articles, right up through last year, where she 
has specifically and forcefully advocated that we use the supervisory 
powers of the Fed, which are enormous, to steer capital away from 
fossil fuel energy companies and steer it toward politically favored 
industries. So, in other words, turn the Fed into a body that allocates 
capital, turn the Fed into a policymaking arm of the government.
  It is a shocking notion that the Fed, which is supposed to be 
responsible for monetary policies, supposed to be responsible for 
stable prices and full employment, hasn't been doing such a great job 
on the stable prices front, by the way.
  What they want to do is have the Fed take on this whole new--it is 
perfect, from their point of view. It is a way to advance this climate 
agenda without having to take responsibility for it.
  That is the reason that I am strongly opposed to Sarah Bloom Raskin 
serving as the Vice Chair for Supervision on the Fed. But that is not 
the reason that every Republican agreed that it would be premature to 
vote on her candidacy today. So the reason for that is because she 
refuses to answer questions. It was very difficult getting a complete--
I don't know if we even now have a complete application from her. There 
were things dribbling out that should have been presented as a complete 
package much earlier in this process. But now she has refused to answer 
very fundamental questions, especially about a firm called the Reserve 
Trust and her role there.
  So let me walk through, briefly, the sequence of events, and I think 
you will see why we have got some questions. Reserve Trust is a fintech 
company. It is based in Colorado. And like many fintech companies, they 
decided it would be enormously valuable for them to have direct access 
to the Federal Reserve's payment wires. To get that access, they 
applied for something that is called a master account.
  Well, to my knowledge, the Fed has never approved a master account 
for a fintech company of this nature. And so unsurprisingly, the Fed 
turned down the application by Reserve Trust for a master account.
  Then Sarah Bloom Raskin, who is on the board of Reserve Trust--she 
had been a Fed Governor and she had worked in a senior post at Treasury 
and then she joined the board of Reserve Trust. Well, after the 
application got turned down, Sarah Bloom Raskin called the president of 
the Kansas City Fed and lobbied for them to get the account.
  Now, how do I know that? Well, it is because the president of the 
Kansas City Fed told me. But Sarah Bloom Raskin hasn't. When asked the 
question, ``Did you call anyone at the Fed on behalf of the Reserve 
Trust,'' she seemed to have developed a case of amnesia--couldn't 
recall. That is funny. The person who received the call remembered. And 
the chairman of the board of Reserve Trust knew all about this call. 
But Sarah Bloom Raskin had no recollection.
  So what happened next? So they applied for the master account; it is 
turned down; Sarah Bloom Raskin calls the Fed; and then within months, 
the Federal Reserve does a 180-degree turn, reverses itself, and 
approves the transaction. A few months after that, Sarah Bloom Raskin 
steps down from the board and pockets $1.5 million in stocks that she 
had been granted.
  All right. About that sequence of events, I don't think there is 
anybody that disputes the factual accuracy. What we want to know is, 
how did this happen? Because now the Reserve Trust is the one fintech 
in America that I am aware of that got a master account at the Fed. It 
is enormously valuable, at least it is to them. You should see the 
advertising they do about it. They were turned down. And then it was 
all approved.
  So I think we have a responsibility to find out how did that 180-
degree reversal by the Fed take place? How was that decision taken? Who 
made that decision and why? And we have asked for the documents that 
would substantiate that. An explanation first would be nice and 
documents to back it up.
  We have asked that of Sarah Bloom Raskin. She has told us she doesn't 
recall whether or why it was important to Reserve Trust to get the 
master account. That is funny. It seems like it was the most important 
thing to that company and she was on their board and she made the call. 
But this is the kind of stonewalling we are dealing with. Can't get 
answers to basic simple questions: Who did you talk to? When did you 
talk to them? What was the nature of the conversation?

  And from the Fed: What was the review process? What led you to change 
your conclusion? Do you have a memo from the general counsel laying out 
the case?
  By the way, there are lots of applications out there still pending. 
There are lots of fintech companies that would love to get the master 
account that Reserve Trust got. If there is a way to do that legally, I 
think everybody ought to know what it is so that they can decide 
whether, as a business matter, they want to pursue that. It is pretty 
hard for anybody to pursue that when they get stonewalled, as we are 
getting stonewalled.
  It is pretty rich when I hear some of my colleagues come down here 
and complain that Republicans didn't show up at committee today. This 
is the only recourse we have when we are getting stonewalled, and we 
can't get an answer to basic questions--which is our responsibility to 
get answers to these questions--what else can we do? There is nothing 
else we can do. We offered to vote on the five nominees who actually 
did provide answers to the questions in their applications. But as I 
said, the chairman preferred to have zero people advance today rather 
than have five.
  And it is particularly rich when you consider this. The chairman 
himself, just in the last couple of years, urged his Democratic 
colleagues to boycott a Finance Committee markup over nominees that he 
wasn't satisfied with.
  So I think this context is important. And I remind my colleagues, 
Republicans on the Banking Committee are quite happy to vote on five 
nominees, including four Fed Governors, but we are not willing to vote 
for Ms. Raskin until we get some answers to our questions.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.