Joe Biden has appointed Sarah Bloom Raskin as the Fed’s top banking director

Joe Biden has appointed Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Treasury secretary general, to oversee the Federal Reserve’s financial affairs, while the White House demands stricter banking regulations and greater economic interest in climate change.

The U.S. president on Thursday night sent Raskin’s nomination as deputy Fed chair to the Senate, where he will have to be confirmed in the post, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Biden also appointed Lisa Cook, a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, and Philip Jefferson, a professor of economics at Davidson College, to fill the two remaining vacancies on the Fed’s board of directors.

Cook would be the first African-American woman in US history to be on the board of a major bank, while Jefferson could be the fourth American American to serve as ambassador to the Fed, fulfilling Biden’s promises. bringing in different colors at the central bank.

The decision ends months of negotiations within Biden’s management over the Fed’s top positions, including the decision to vote. Jay Powell for the second time such as the chair with Lael Brainard, the Fed’s governor, being the second in the chair.

Powell and Brainard testified in their affidavit cases before a Senate banking committee this week, and vowed to move forward. combating rising prices in the economic system when inflation rose to a record high for almost four decades.

Raskin, a law professor at Duke University who served as deputy secretary general of the Treasury during Barack Obama’s presidency, has long been a stalwart. he is considered the most successful of responsibility. He has previously been an ambassador to the Fed and enjoys a lot of support among Democrats.

Raskin, 60, was elected to the Fed in 2010 along with Janet Yellen, who later chaired the Fed and is now Treasury secretary. Raskin played a major role in the central bank in drafting Dodd-Frank legislation that sought to regulate the banking system in the wake of the global financial crisis.

At the Fed, he also focused on addressing financial inequalities and promoting consumer protection, a task he continued in the Treasury department, in addition to leadership. cyber security concerns.

Recently, Raskin, who is married to Jamie Raskin, a member of the Democratic House of Representatives in Maryland, has been honored. a spokesman for the word to act boldly from the central bank and other regulators in tackling the economic crisis caused by climate change.

“In view of the unpredictable climate change – but more and more – financially, US authorities need to abandon their comfort zone and take immediate action before the crisis worsens and become more costly,” he said. he wrote in September.

Republican lawmakers opposed the Fed’s handling of such topics as climate change, push Brainard At his confirmation meeting Thursday about his support for critical consideration of environmental hazards.

Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican senator, condemned Raskin’s actions. debt reduction to more oil companies and Fed support for companies in crisis.

“I am concerned that they will misuse Fed rules on finance and oversee the banks for the central bank to operate the budget,” Toomey said in a statement. “Such actions not only undermine the Fed’s independence and efficiency, but also undermine economic growth.”

Powell has previously said that climate change “is a matter for which a number of government agencies, not the Fed”, and that the central bank was not and “did not want to be a climate change planner” – comments that have been made. criticized by developers.

But he also said he would accept a change in the banking system from the deputy to the deputy bank manager.

When questioned in November and Elizabeth Warren, A Democratic Senator in Massachusetts, whether he will “resign” from the vice-presidency, Powell said: “I would expect to have a healthy, well-functioning working relationship” with anyone who has been confirmed.