The Senate Banking Committee voted Wednesday to confirm Janet Yellen as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and two other central bank nominees.
The three appointments now move to the full Senate, which is not expected to act until September.
Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, was approved 17 to 6, with Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and some other Republicans opposed. She is nominated to succeed Don Kohn, who has said he will leave Sept. 1.
Peter Diamond, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and leading expert on Social Security, was approved 16 to 7, while Sarah Bloom Raskin, Maryland's commissioner of financial regulation, was approved 21 to 2. Both were nominated as governors of the 7-member board.
In approving the nominees, the committee's chairman, Chris Dodd, said they will "clearly have their hands full in the coming years."
The panel also approved by 23 to 0 the nomination of Steve A. Linick to be inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
