The coming week features three hearings focused on the Federal Reserve System, including two appearances by Fed Board Chair Jerome H. (“Jay”) Powell on monetary policy and testimony later by two nominated by the president to fill posts on the Fed Board:
- Tuesday and Wednesday, Fed Chair Powell will testify before the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee, respectively, in his first round of this year’s semiannual testimony on monetary policy. The Fed’s monetary policy report was sent to Congress Friday and will provide the basis for Powell’s testimony before both hearings. He’s also likely to field questions on pending regulatory matters. These could include banking regulators’ recent proposal to further ease the Volcker rule (limiting proprietary trading by banks); large-bank supervision; proposed changes to Community Reinvestment Act rules (specifically, whether, how or, when the Fed may sign on to a proposal; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a proposed rule in January).
- Two nominees to the Fed Board – Judy Shelton and Christopher Waller – are scheduled to testify Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee. Shelton, a former executive director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, would fill the remainder of a 14-year term expiring Jan. 31, 2024, if confirmed. (When named in fall 2016 as a member of then-President Elect Trump’s transition team at Treasury, she described herself as a “self-employed economist.”) Waller, an economist and executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, would fill the remainder of a 14-year term expiring Jan. 31, 2030.
On Wednesday, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) Appraisal Subcommittee will meet in open session to discuss, among other things, the Illinois appraiser program compliance review and a reprogramming request for fiscal 2019 ASC grants.
Federal Reserve Monetary Policy Report (Feb. 7, 2020)