WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke headline a busy week for financial-services issues on Capitol Hill.
Bernanke will appear Tuesday morning before the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Sen. Robert Casey, D-Penn., for a hearing on the U.S. economic outlook. The Fed chairman is expected to face tough questioning from Democrats about the persistence of high unemployment, and from Republicans who question whether the Fed's most recent monetary policy actions will be effective.
Also Tuesday morning, the House domestic monetary policy subcommittee will hold a hearing on the continuing effort to audit the Fed. The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who championed a measure that resulted in an audit of the Fed's extraordinary lending programs during the financial crisis, and is currently a pushing a broader measure to audit the central bank. Among the witnesses scheduled to testify is Orice Williams Brown of the Government Accountability Office, which carried out the audit.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate subcommittee on financial institutions and consumer protection will convene for a hearing on middle-class wealth building in an age of high household debt. Among the witnesses scheduled to testify are Robert Lawless, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Illinois, and Ray Boshara, a senior advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to vote on five pieces of legislation. Two bills that have Democratic and Republican co-sponsors would both raise the threshold at which Securities and Exchange Commission registration is required to $10 million from $1 million for total assets in a class of an equity security. One of the bills would also require the termination of the registration of a bank security if the number of holders of the class of security falls below 1,200.
Geithner, meanwhile will appear before both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday.
The Treasury secretary will be testifying about the first annual report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a board created by last year's Dodd-Frank Act to monitor risk in the financial system. In the House, Geithner seems likely to face tough questioning from Republicans who argue that financial regulation needs to be pared back.
Also Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee is aiming to hold a vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to Senate Democratic aide. Cordray's nomination has the support of committee Democrats, who hold a majority on the committee, but Republicans have signaled that they will block the nomination once it reaches the Senate floor.
A Thursday morning hearing before the House subcommittee on insurance and housing will look at the Obama administration's response to the housing crisis. In addition to witnesses from the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the committee will hear from Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, who has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration's response to the foreclosure crisis.
Finally, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is holding a hearing Thursday morning on excessive speculation in commodities markets, and in particular, compliance with the provisions of Dodd-Frank that seek to rein in speculative trading. Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commmission, is expected to testify.
