WASHINGTON,
D.C. – Today on the Senate Floor, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chairman
of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, called on
his colleagues to support the nomination of Dr. Lisa Cook to be a Member of the
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Video
of Senator Brown’s remarks is available
here.
Sen.
Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, follow:
Mr./Madame President, I urge my colleagues
to join me in confirming Lisa Cook to the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System.
Dr.
Cook is an unquestionably qualified economist with many years of experience.
She brings a breadth of research and international experience on monetary
policy, banking, and financial crises. In fact, she is one the country’s
leading researchers on international economic growth and innovation economics.
Dr.
Cook currently serves as a dual-tenured professor of economics and
international relations at Michigan State University. She previously taught at
the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and served on the Council of Economic
Advisers during the Eurozone crisis and at the Department of Treasury.
She
is also a historic nominee. If confirmed, she would be the first black woman
ever, in the more than 100 year history of the Fed, to serve on its Board. Take
a moment to think about that.
She
knows that workers drive our economic growth. And she knows how important their
local communities are.
Dr.
Cook spent her formative years in the South, and a significant portion of her
career in the industrial Midwest. She’s seen how the economy works for all
kinds of different people, in different parts of the country. She arrived on
campus at Michigan State a few years before the financial crisis, and she saw
its impact on the students, the professors, the entire community.
She has made it clear that she is dedicated to Fed independence
and will uphold the Fed’s dual mandate of maximum employment and price
stability.
Her
nomination represents another example of the Biden administration’s serious
efforts to make the economy work for everyone, not just those at the top.
This is a critical time for the Fed. We
need Dr. Cook – and all of our qualified nominees – on the job immediately to
fight inflation.
Dr.
Cook is unquestionably qualified and possesses bipartisan support from top
economists, former Fed Governors, bankers, and civil rights organizations.
Despite
her broad support, a small but loud minority have wrongly claimed that Lisa
Cook doesn’t meet the standards for this position – standards that only seem to
apply for certain nominees. Still, she has met and exceeded all of those high
bars: she’s a PhD economist, she is a tenured professor, and she is sought by
organizations around the world for her input and perspective.
She
will bring a critical voice to the Fed—one that has been missing for far too
long.
I strongly urge my colleagues to join me
in supporting Dr. Cook’s nomination, and getting her on the board right away to
help in our economic recovery.
I
yield the floor.
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