Fed's Powell, Brainard to get Senate hearings next week; Biden promises diversity

[January 05, 2022]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will make his first public appearance of 2022 next week as lawmakers consider him for a second four-year term, while President Joe Biden weighs his picks for three other Fed Board seats with an eye to diversity.

The Senate Banking Committee will consider Powell's renomination on Jan. 11 at 10 a.m. Eastern (1500 GMT), the panel said on its website Tuesday. It will hold a separate hearing on Jan. 13 to consider the nomination of Fed Governor Lael Brainard to be vice chair.

Biden is making diversity a priority in his selection of other Fed leaders, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Tuesday, even as she declined to specify when an announcement about filling more Fed seats would be made. "I expect we will have more soon," she said.

Biden is said to be considering former Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin for vice chair of supervision, as well as two Black economists - Michigan State University's Lisa Cook and Davidson College's Philip Jefferson - to round out the seven-member Board. If those are his picks, it would make the Fed Board more diverse than it has ever been.

The Board has only had three Black governors since the Fed's founding in 1913, and has never had a Black female member.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell poses for photos with Fed Governor Lael Brainard (L) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., June 4, 2019. REUTERS/Ann Saphir

Of the five members of the current Fed Board, all are white; two are women.

Powell's nomination hearing will be his first time speaking publicly since the Fed last month decided to bring its bond-buying program to an end by March and signaled it could raise interest rates three times this year.

Since then COVID-19 cases have surged to records, causing disruptions to schools, travel and some businesses, and denting the supply of labor.

Powell was first nominated to the Fed Board in 2012 by President Barack Obama, and in 2018 was picked by President Donald Trump to lead the central bank for a four-year term expiring in February 2022.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Jeff Mason, Ann Saphir, Howard Schneider; editing by Richard Pullin)

[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.  This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.]