The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Nomination of Michael S. Barr (Executive Session)” mentioning the Federal Reserve System was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S3246-S3247 on July 13.
The Federal Reserve is the US's central bank, expanding many times during great financial uncertainty and panic. It has faced numerous criticisms since its creation in 1913, such as making the Great Depression worse and for lacking transparency and audits.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Nomination of Michael S. Barr
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the nomination of Michael Barr to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Vice Chair for Supervision.
His confirmation is expected today, but we hold votes on these things to find out for sure. His confirmation will mean that the Federal Reserve, for the first time in years, will have a complement of all seven members.
I credit the Biden administration for being aggressive in doing that. I credit the committee, which I chair. The Acting President pro tempore is a prominent member of that committee, Senator Warren, and I thank her for her work on this. It is a big deal.
Mr. Barr is a qualified nominee who came out of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support. Five Republicans, including Ranking Member Toomey, and all 12 Democrats supported his nomination. It is clear why. He is a leading expert with decades of experience in helping to guide and protect our economy, including having experience with financial institutions and financial regulation.
He has served this country at the Departments of Treasury and State as well as at the White House. At the Treasury Department, as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, Mr. Barr played a critical role in responding to the 2008 financial crisis when Wall Street greed and recklessness crashed our economy.
I know especially, as I said on the floor, what it did to my community, even to my neighborhood. The ZIP Code in which Connie and I live in Cleveland, 44105, had more foreclosures in the first half of 2007 than had any ZIP Code in America, and we still live with that.
We passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act back then. Among the many steps the legislation took to prevent another crisis, we created the Vice Chair for Supervision to identify and to stay ahead of risks to our country's financial system, like cyber threats, volatile cryptocurrency, or the climate crisis. We created this job to hold the biggest banks accountable so that Wall Street wouldn't put working families and businesses on Main Street at risk again.
We know Wall Street puts its own interests first always. We know, too often, it is at the risk of small businesses, at the risk of working families, at the risk of the middle class, and at the risk of low-
income people. We understand that that is their behavior, and the purpose of Dodd-Frank was as far as we could go to fix that.
Mr. Barr has worked for a quarter century to make our financial system safer and fairer. He has focused on developing and evaluating financial regulatory policies. Most importantly, he has a keen understanding of the type of risks that pose threats to our financial stability. Mr. Barr will join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors at a critical time for our economy, maintaining Federal Reserve independence along the way.
In response to a question for the record, Mr. Barr told us the following:
Independence is critical for the Federal Reserve to effectively carry out its congressional mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. Politics should play no role in setting monetary policy. . . . I am committed, if confirmed--
He wrote--
to adhere strictly to a non-political, data-driven, independent approach to policy making.
I support Mr. Barr's nomination in this critical role. Once confirmed, as I said, we will have a full Federal Reserve Board, with all seven members. It has been almost a decade since we have been able to do that. It has taken this new President and this new majority in the Senate to do that, and I thank all of my colleagues who have played a role in that.
I urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Michael Barr.
