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March 14 (UPI) — Sen. Joe Manchin said Monday he will not support President Joe Biden’s nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Federal Reserve Board due to his concerns over her positions on energy policy.
The opposition of the West Virginia Democrat, considered the party’s most conservative U.S. senator, means that at least one Republican would have to back Raskin for her to win confirmation — an unlikely scenario in the evenly divided upper chamber.
“I have carefully reviewed Sarah Bloom Raskin’s qualifications and previous public statements,” Manchin said in a statement. “Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs.
“I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to support her nomination to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board,” he said.
Biden last month nominated Raskin, a former Fed governor, to serve in the key position of vice chair for supervision, which in effect is the body’s top enforcer of banking regulations.
The choice, however, quickly drew Republican criticism due to her stated aims of incorporating climate change concerns into the Fed’s regulatory actions.
Manchin last week indicated support for Biden’s slate of four other Fed nominees, including Jerome Powell for a second term as chairman, Lael Brainard as vice chair and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson as governors.
But he withheld support for Raskin and joined Republican critics of her nomination in asserting that she could “politicize its critical decisions” as a member of the Fed.
Manchin, who draws frequent political contributions from the coal, gas and oil industries, announced his opposition amid a standoff in the Senate’s banking committee, where Republicans have boycotted a vote on Biden’s slate of Fed officers due to their opposition to Raskin.
Committee chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has refused to allow a vote on the other four candidates alone, CNBC reported.
Raskin served as a Treasury Department deputy secretary under former President Barack Obama, overseeing its various agencies and departments, pursuing solutions related to climate change risk and cybersecurity, as well as defending consumer safeguards in the financial marketplace.
In her first term on the Fed, between Oct. 4, 2010, and March 13, 2014, she helped to conduct the nation’s monetary policy, seeking to promote financial stability.
She is married to U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who is a member of the House committee that is investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
