National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Madam President, in my time in the Senate, I have tried hard to make certain that rural America--rural Kansas in particular but all of rural America--has an advocate and that we work hard to make certain that colleagues from across the country understand the important issues we face in small towns across Kansas and around the country.

Today, I want to talk about an opportunity we have that I think will be most beneficial to those of us who come from places like the Presiding Officer and I do. I rise today to speak in support of Miki Bowman. She was nominated recently--she had a hearing in front of our Banking Committee--to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Tomorrow, our Banking Committee will consider her nomination. I want to make certain that my colleagues on the committee and certainly my colleagues here in the Senate understand how valuable Miki will be as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board and understand her qualifications.

She is a native of a small town in Kansas. She is a native of Morris County in a beautiful part of our State. She received a degree from the University of Kansas as an undergrad and a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka. She is a rural American.

Her talents brought her to Washington, DC. She served at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and on the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee as a staffer, as well as in the office of Senator Bob Dole, one of my predecessors in the Senate.

Like many of the Kansans I have known who have come here to Washington, DC, to work over the years, she found her way back home to Kansas when she returned to her hometown and became the vice president of the Farmers & Drovers Bank in 2010. In 2017, Ms. Bowman became the State bank commissioner for our State, where she is currently responsible for overseeing hundreds of State chartered banks, trust companies, money transmitters, and other nondepository entities.

Ms. Bowman is precisely the kind of person I envision to fill the community bank representative position on the Board of Governors. The Federal Reserve Act now requires--and we worked hard to make sure this was the case--that the President ``appoint at least one member with demonstrated primary experience working in or supervising community banks having less than $10 billion in total assets.'' Well, the Farmers & Drovers Bank in Council Grove, KS, is a $175 million bank--well below that $10 billion threshold. So Ms. Bowman not only qualifies by the criteria of the statute--she is a banker--but she is also a supervisor, as exemplified by her role now as our State banking commissioner.

If those qualifications aren't enough, I have come to know Miki Bowman as a forthright, intelligent, quality individual with a demonstrated record of service to her State, her country, and to her community. Those of us who know what I call relationship bankers know how important their role is in a small town in Kansas and across the country. The perspective she brings to the table as a banker, as a regulator, as a public servant, as a mother, and as a community leader is exactly the kind of perspective I think our country and our economy need at the Federal Reserve Board.

I look forward to voting to advance Ms. Bowman's nomination tomorrow morning in the Banking Committee. I urge all my colleagues to support her confirmation when she is considered by the full Senate in the near future.

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