[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 16, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S732-S733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Federal Reserve Board Nominations

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment for our country 
and for our economy. Everyone understands we need a full Federal 
Reserve Board. Once we move the President's nominees and get them 
confirmed and get them sworn in, it will be the first time in nearly a 
decade that the Federal Reserve has had a full complement of seven Fed 
Governors. That is especially important with the upcoming meeting of 
the Federal Reserve in March because the Fed's job is to tackle 
inflation and bring prices down for American families.
  It is a pretty simple equation. The President nominates. I mean, it 
didn't happen in the last few years, but the President nominates. We 
have hearings. We ask some questions. We send them followup questions. 
The nominees answer these questions. That is how this place works. That 
is a good thing about this place.
  Then we call the vote in committee, and we vote yes or no. The job is 
vote yes or vote no and hope your side prevails.
  And that is what Americans think we should do. Every day Americans 
get up, go to work, and do their jobs. But Senate Republicans didn't do 
theirs yesterday.
  We had our markup, a meeting to confirm five--just five--nominees for 
the Federal Reserve. The Chair of the Federal Reserve, appointed 
originally by President Trump, has been renominated by President Biden. 
His nomination we were voting on; the Vice Chair, Lael Brainard, who 
has been on the Fed some time; and then three new Fed slots that have 
been vacant for some time: Sarah Bloom Raskin, who would be Vice Chair 
of Supervision, a very important job at the Fed; and the other two, 
also important jobs, Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson. All five of these 
nominations we wanted to vote on yesterday.
  Three weeks ago, Senator Toomey, the leading Republican on the 
committee, he and I agreed it would be yesterday; that the vote would 
be yesterday and we would meet at 2:15 and vote them up or down. And 
everybody--all 14 of us get a vote.
  Well, under Senate rules, if one party doesn't want to play ball, 
they don't

[[Page S733]]

show up, and we can't do business. So all 12 Democrats showed up. We 
wanted to vote. We actually took an informal vote, which passed 12 to 
0, for essentially all six of them. There was one ``no'' on one of 
them. But Republicans didn't show up.
  So, as I said, Americans every day get up, go to work, and do their 
jobs. They expect us to get up every day, go to work, and do our jobs. 
But Republicans are AWOL in the fight against inflation. If we are 
going to get serious about inflation, we need a Federal Reserve in 
place. We need all seven Fed Governors in place, ready to work, ready 
to debate and make decisions about monetary policy, about interest 
rates, about jobs, about attacking inflation.
  Americans--in Boulder or Denver or Cleveland or Columbus, Americans 
don't want more political theatrics. They want solutions to bring down 
their costs. And Republicans, they have been great at coming to the 
floor and speaking against inflation. They have got their political 
stunts. But when it really came time to show up and do their job, they 
just simply didn't show up yesterday to do their jobs. All 12 Democrats 
were there ready to go. All 12 of us wanted to move forward on these 5 
nominations for the Federal Reserve, and under Senate rules we simply 
couldn't act officially to get this done.
  So I know that the ranking member--I understand he doesn't want to do 
this for whatever reasons. He doesn't like her position on climate 
change. He doesn't like it that she is going to--the one he is 
complaining most about, he doesn't like it that she is going to stand 
up to Wall Street and not roll over for Wall Street every time Wall 
Street, you know, rattles the Fed's chains. He knows that, and he 
probably doesn't like that, but he is hanging his hat on some issue 
that really makes very little sense.
  Sarah Bloom Raskin, the person whom he is most complaining about, 
over a weekend, had 48 hours to answer more than 180 questions from 
Senator Toomey and his colleagues. She answered them all in 48 hours. 
Then, even outside of the Senate rules, more questions were sent to 
her. She answered those questions.
  So it is really about the fact that far too many people here pay far 
too much attention to the oil company lobby, but that is really neither 
here nor there. Everyday Americans, as I say, get up, go to work, do 
their jobs. Senate Republicans must do theirs.
  Pure and simple, Republicans are AWOL in the fight against inflation. 
We are not going to stop fighting for these nominees. The American 
people want us to vote. Some people vote yes, some no. I am fine with 
that. But the American people want us to do our jobs.
  When you come here, there aren't three boxes: vote yes, vote no, or 
check a box that says: I don't want to come to work today; I am not 
going to vote.
  No, they want us to vote. So we will keep fighting for these 
nominees.
  I implore at least 1 Republican of the 12 on the committee to come to 
our next markup, our next vote, our next executive session so we can 
vote on these nominees. I want the Federal Reserve, for the first time 
in a decade, to all be there pulling in the same direction, fighting 
inflation for our country.
  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. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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