Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson testifies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on his nomination to be the next Federal Reserve Vice Chairman on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee for three members of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, ready to vote in the full Senate later this year.
The committee unanimously approved Philip Jefferson as Biden’s nominee for Fed vice chairman. If passed by the full Senate, Jefferson would replace Lael Brainard, who resigned from the Fed earlier this year to lead Biden’s National Economic Council.
Biden nominated Lisa Cook to serve a 14-year term at the Fed, which the panel approved by a 13-10 vote. Cook first joined the board in 2022, when the full Senate narrowly confirmed her to fill the unexpired term.
The committee’s third nominee is Adriana Kugler, whom Biden first appointed to the Fed’s board in May. Coogler also passed by a 13-10 vote, with all Democrats and Republican Senator Mike Lowndes of South Dakota voting in favor.Coogler is currently the U.S. Representative to the World Bank and the U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank Group
The Fed confirmations of Coogler, Jefferson and Cook would all mark milestones for the racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. rate-setting committee if the Senate plenary approves the three nominees.
Coogler will be the first Hispanic to serve on the Fed’s board of governors, while Cook will be the first black woman confirmed to serve a full term. Jefferson will be the second black person in Fed history to serve as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The Senate committee vote comes at a delicate time for the central bank, as central bankers grapple with when and by how much to raise interest rates again this year.
The current series of rate hikes is aimed at offsetting high inflation, but the Fed’s moves will take time to feed into the broader economy. Inflation rose 0.2% in June and was up 3% year-on-year, as price increases started to moderate.
Last month, the Fed paused a streak of 10 rate hikes beginning in March 2022 that had lifted the benchmark federal funds rate by 5 percentage points.
Soaring interest rates are a major factor in millions of Americans’ decisions about whether to buy or sell a home or take out an auto loan, recent data shows.
The average interest rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.96 percent on Wednesday, according to the Mortgage News Daily. On average, it is 4 percentage points higher than when it fell near the all-time low on July 12, 2021.