Fed Seeks to Calm Congressional Demand for More Oversight
By Cheyenne Hopkins and Craig Torres Sep 8, 2014 12:01 AM ET
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has tried to repair damaged relations with Congress during her first seven months in office. The fix-up isn’t going very well.
Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee started the year promising a series of inquiries into the nation’s central bank. New legislation aimed at reducing the Fed’s discretion on monetary policy and bank supervision has been proposed. A bipartisan group of 15 House and Senate members sent a letter to the Fed, asking it to clarify how it would use its emergency lending authority in another crisis.
The efforts signal growing discomfort with policy makers’ unusual reach in financial markets and their expanding regulatory powers.
The Fed is “moving into new territory,” said Representative William Huizenga, a Michigan Republican, whose exchange with Yellen at a July 16 hearing turned tense, as each briefly spoke over the other. “They don’t feel like they need to explain it to us.”
Yellen has worked hard at reconciliation after relations soured under her predecessor, Ben S. Bernanke, who declined to comment. His unprecedented actions during the financial crisis - - including an $85 billion rescue of insurer American International Group Inc. -- raised concerns the central bank was growing too powerful while resisting scrutiny of its actions.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-08/fed-seeks-to-calm-congress-demand-for-more-oversight.html
