The Senate Banking Committee quickly approved President Joe Biden’s remaining four Federal Reserve nominees after Sarah Bloom Raskin withdrew her bid for the top oversight job at the central bank in the face of bipartisan opposition, Politico reported. The panel voted to advance the nominations of Fed Chair Jerome Powell to a new term; Fed Governor Lael Brainard to serve as vice chair, and economists Philip Jefferson and Lisa Cook to become members of the bank’s board of governors. It also approved the nomination of Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Sandra Thompson to a full five-year term as the nation’s top housing regulator. The nominees would join the Fed as the central bank is grappling with the highest inflation in four decades. Republicans had held up the nominations over the choice of Raskin — a progressive darling who has called for greater scrutiny of banks’ lending to fossil fuel companies — to be the Fed’s vice chair of supervision, effectively the Fed’s bank watchdog. Raskin withdrew her nomination Tuesday after Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Susan Collins (R-Me.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that they would not support her. Raskin had previously been confirmed to posts as a Fed governor and deputy Treasury secretary during the Obama administration without GOP opposition.
