Senator
Shelby starts to break banking nominee logjam
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[March 09, 2016]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate
Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby on Tuesday started to ease the
backlog of 16 Obama administration nominees stalled before the panel,
scheduling a March 15 confirmation hearing for two Securities and
Exchange Commission nominees.
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The move follows Shelby's resounding Republican primary victory in
Alabama a week ago for a sixth term in the Senate.
The committee will question Lisa Fairfax and Hester Peirce for the
SEC positions at the hearing as well as Matthew Jeppson to be
director of the U.S. Mint.
But 13 other nominations remain, including for two Federal Reserve
Board governors, the U.S. Treasury's top anti-terrorist finance
official and a U.S. Export-Import Bank board member.
Without the EXIM board member approved, the trade bank cannot
approve large loans or guarantees above $10 million, effectively
locking it out of deals for Boeing Co commercial aircraft or major
power equipment made by General Electric.
Conservatives, including Shelby, had waged a major campaign to close
the trade bank last year, idling it for more than five months before
Congress voted to renew its charter. He told Reuters in December
that the EXIM nomination would be a "lower priority for him."
The Fed nominees, former community banker Allan Landon and
University of Michigan economist Kathryn Dominguez, would restore
the central bank's board to its full capacity of seven members.
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Many had written off their chances of being confirmed, in part
because of the testy relationship between Congress and the Fed,
which has opposed Republican bills it says would curb its
independence.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chris Reese)
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