Republicans grill Fed nominee Raskin over past views on climate and big energy companies

cnbc.com:

Senate Republicans on Thursday peppered the nominee to be the Federal Reserve's top banking watchdog with questions over whether she would steer the institution into climate change and other areas outside of its mandate.

President Joe Biden put up Sarah Bloom Raskin to the post of vice chair for banking supervision, arguably the most important regulator for the industry.

Though Raskin said that previous writings from her that cast fossil fuels in an unfavorable light would not cause her to put the Fed «in the business of choosing winners and losers,» GOP members of the Senate banking panel weren't convinced.

«With respect to Ms. Raskin, I have to say this is one of the most remarkable cases of confirmation conversion I have ever seen, although she doesn't acknowledge the contradiction of what she has said today compared to the things she has been saying and writing for years,» ranking Republican Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania said.

Toomey specifically pointed to commentary pieces Raskin authored that spoke of allocating capital away from fossil fuels businesses. In one May 2020 piece for The New York Times titled «Why Is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?» Raskin discouraged the central bank from using its emergency lending powers deployed at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to help big energy companies.

«Climate change threatens financial stability; addressing it can create economic opportunity and more jobs,» Rasking wrote then. «The decisions the Fed makes on our behalf should build toward a stronger economy with more jobs in innovative industries — not prop up and enrich dying ones.»

Asked repeatedly whether her writings meant she would push banks not to lend money to fossil fuel