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Floor Speech

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Ms. LUMMIS. Madam President, I rise to support commonsense legislation that will bring transparency and accountability to the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Currently, the inspector general of the Fed is appointed by the Fed Chair. This is highly unusual, and it means that the inspector general has no independence from the management of the Fed and is susceptible to influence. This is an unacceptable arrangement. I think we all agree that inspectors general cannot do their jobs without independence.

Democrats who are objecting to this commonsense legislation today have made inspector general independence a priority for years, and rightfully so, until today. Think about that. Democrats are saying they are OK with being complicit in the mismanagement of the Fed that we are seeing today. We are witnessing unprecedented mismanagement of the Fed.

The Fed overrun--and it was just discussed by my colleague from Ohio--it has overrun its budget for its building renovation by at least $700 million, and Chair Powell appointed the inspector general who is now tasked with examining this fiasco. Do we expect the Fed's inspector general to do anything other than immunize the Fed Chair from further scrutiny and say everything is on the up and up?

I won't have any confidence in the Fed's IG and its findings until that person has statutory independence from the Fed Chair. The Federal Reserve has grown too powerful, too insulated, too comfortable, and they are operating in the shadows. And this is the minimum we can do to start getting this independent Agency some scrutiny. They don't even respond to FOIA requests. You can't get an answer. That place is Whac-A-Mole. If you try to talk to the Fed Chair about something, they will put it on the Vice Chair for banking supervision who will put it on the presidents of the Federal Reserve banks who put it back on the White House who put it back on bank supervision who put it on the lawyer for bank supervision. This place is a ping-pong ball when it comes to trying to get an answer to a question. It has become a giant black hole of unaccountability. It is time for change.

This is a commonsense change that my colleague from Florida is proposing. It is the right approach. I am proud to partner with Senator Scott to move this legislation forward, and we will keep trying.

Thank you to the gentleman from Florida for his tireless advocacy for common sense.

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Ms. LUMMIS. Madam President, I want to echo the remarks that were just made by my colleague from Ohio and add a couple of things. Not only do we as a Senate have an opportunity to prevent a nominee from being confirmed into office by our own vote and our own scrutiny and our own vetting of nominees, but we have the opportunity, in this case, to turn an Agency that was created for independence that has now become independently disassociated with the very people it is designed to help govern and help rein them in with a Senate-confirmed inspector general.

Now, we have proposed other ideas that have not been accepted yet, but that should be considered, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle won't accept this one.

One of the reasons I like the Senator from Florida's idea here is because it is such a strategic, narrow way to try to get some independent eyes at the Fed. Other ways that I had considered, and that we could still consider if this idea is unacceptable, is to make the Feds subject to FOIA. We could confirm all 12 of the regional presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks so we have a say in who they are and any number of other provisions that give the people of this country some oversight over that entity, the Federal Reserve, that has become so independent that it thumbs its nose at working for and with the American people.

Look what happened in the way banks were supervised in the last 4 years. Choke Point 2.0 brought about a government-caused failure of two banks. Those banks were not insolvent. The Federal Reserve and the FDIC pushed them into insolvency because they didn't like their customers. That was it. They didn't like it that banks were providing banking services to digital asset companies, to Melania Trump, to the children of the now-President. They targeted those people. They debanked those people. Government did that by threatening the financial institutions that had them as customers, saying that the safety and soundness of the institution was going to be subject to scrutiny if they continued to bank digital asset businesses, the Trump family, and others.

That was government targeting--targeting--Americans. That was our government turned against our people for no good reason, and there is no way to get scrutiny of the Fed because they don't have an independent IG. They are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. We don't have sufficient oversight of them. We have got to get oversight over the Fed.

And I want to applaud my colleague from Florida for taking the initial step that every other Agency is subject to: an independent inspector general.

So I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are objecting to this measured, commonsense matter, for heaven's sake, come up with a solution because the Fed is an unaccountable, run-amok place that is not responsive to the American people.

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